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HALE MERRILL’S 
HONEY QUEST 







“ You WILL FIN’D YOUR HONEY IN EVERY SITUATION IN LIFE IF YOU 

LOOK FOR IT.” — Page 42. 



HALE MERRILL’S 
HONEY QUEST 

How One Girl Made the Best of Things 


By 

ANNIE ELIZABETH HARRIS 


ILLUSTRATED BY RONALD ANDERSON 



BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 


Published, August, 1918 



Copyright, 1918, 

By Lotheop, Lee & Shepard Co. 

All Rights Reserved 

HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 


S>CU50169l 

SEP -5 1918 


florwoo^ iPresB 

BERWICK & SMITH 00. 

NORWOOD, MASS. 

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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I A New Obdee ... 11 

II Delia . . . 20 

III Grandmother 30 

IV Forest ... 44 

V Roy 51 

VI Getting Adjusted . ... ... 64 

VII School 73 

VIII A Sensation ........ m r.i ‘ . . 83 

IX A Reprimand ' ... 98 

X The Dramatic Club . . . . . .108 

XI Fruitlands 124 

XII A Business Transaction . . . . . . 133 

XIII A Kitchen Romance 148 

XIV Hale to the Rescue 158 

XV Aunt Alice Investigates ... ... 182 

XVI A Big Undertaking 193 

XVII Preparations 204 

XVIII A Community Christmas 211 

XIX Book Money 229 

XX A Modern Mother Goose 240 

XXI Hale’s Blizzard 250 


7 


8 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXII Between Seasons 266 

XXIII Bobby Hale 277 

XXIV Aunt Alice Explains 281 

XXV The Garden 294 

XXVI The Sixth of June .......... 305 

XXVII An English F&te Day 316 

XXVIII The Bowman Place 326 


ILLUSTEATIONS 


^^You will find your honey in every situation in life ^ 
if you look for it’^ (Page 42) . . . Frontispiece 


FACING 

PAGE 


“ ^Shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the 
worse for thee ” 88 

Not even Race and Bob could leap in time to pre- 
vent Hale’s attack 176 

Raising her hands in a benediction. Hale released ✓ 
the secret 226 v 

She felt almost sure this was the red oak near the . 

turn of the road 258 

‘Ts that our sofa, or is it not?” 328 


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HALE MERRILL’S 
HONEY QUEST 

HOW ONE GIRL MADE THE BEST OF 
THINGS 

CHAPTER I 

A NEW OKDEB 

T O Hale Merrill, in her fourteenth year, 
four dreadful things had happened 
with bewildering rapidity. 

To begin with, her dear little mother was 
gone. Carefully as they had tried to prepare 
Hale for the loss, it was hard for her to 
realize that the little chum who had fallen 
asleep so peacefully on the couch by her side 
had been taken away out of the house and put 
where she could never see her again. 

She had promised to be brave and she did 
try her best to live up to her promise. If 
her governess had been less patient and sym- 
11 


12 HALE MEEEILL^S HONEY QUEST 

pathetic she felt sure that she would have 
failed utterly. As it was, Miss Dwight had 
been a constant comfort in every possible 
way. 

Then, without any preparation. Hale was 
told that Miss Dwight was going to leave. 
The news came to her from her Aunt Alice, 
who since the death of her mother had some- 
how appeared from she knew not where and 
taken charge of the things and the persons in 
her father ^s house. 

Hale might have known that something un- 
pleasant would follow in the train of this un- 
welcome guest ; but for a week she had merely 
lived along from day to day in hope that the 
strange aunt would soon depart the way she 
came and leave them in peace. Miss Dwight 
would not let her talk about Aunt Alice, but 
Hale could see that they both felt alike about 
the new order of things. 

When Aunt Alice told her in blunt, un- 
softened suddenness that her governess was 
going away that very day at noon, Hale could 
not believe it ; she listened in puzzled surprise 
and then shook her head. 


A NEW OEDER 


13 


‘‘She wouldn’t go, Aunt Alice; she is my 
best friend. Mother left everything in her 
care. Why ! she couldn ’t go. ” 

“But she is going, I tell you. It’s all right, 
of course. She has a new position. You’ll 
be as well otf without her. ’ ’ 

Hale flew to Miss Dwight. 

The confusion of packing which reigned in 
Miss Dwight’s room was answer enough to 
her doubts. 

“Oh, it is true !” she cried in grieved aston- 
ishment. 

“Yes, dearie, it is true; though I was com- 
ing to tell you myself after breakfast. I 
didn ’t know you were up. ’ ’ 

“Oh, but Miss Dwight! why are you go- 
ing!” 

“Because it seems best, honey. I can’t 
explain all my reasons now, but I know you 
will see what they are by and by.” 

She took the little figure into her arms and 
held her till the worst of the storm was over. 
Then she comforted her as best she could, 
though it was not easy work when she was so 
near to tears all the time herself. 


14 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

The departure of Miss Dwight had scarcely 
been effected when Miss Merrill saw fit to 
break another piece of news to her niece. 

^‘Now we must pack your things and get 
started for Hawthorne as soon as we can,’’ 
she said briskly. 

Thus casually did the third misfortune 
dawn upon Hale’s horizon. She looked at 
her tormentor in scornful resentment. 

am not going to Hawthorne,” she de- 
clared stoutly. 

‘‘Oh, yes, you are, little Miss Wilful. You 
mustn’t speak to me that way.” 

“What am I going to Hawthorne for?” 
she asked, a trifle less vehemently. 

“To live with your grandmother and me,” 
she was told. 

Again Hale fled from the unwelcome fact to 
seek an explanation. 

“What does Aunt Alice mean ? ’ ’ she begged 
her father to tell her. 

“She means that for a time it seems best 
that you should live with Grandmother and 
Aunt Alice,” was the reply, spoken very 
tenderly. 


A NEW ORDER 15 

‘‘To liveV^ gasped Hale. “Why, Father, 
I should die ! I hate Aunt Alice. ’ ’ 

“My dear,’’ warned her father, “be very 
careful what you say. You do not know 
Aunt Alice yet ; and I hope my little daughter 
will never allow herself to hate any one.” 

“But, Father! it will be dreadful to live 
with any one who is so strict and hard. Are 
you going to live there, too?” 

“No, darling; I have another plan.” 

Then very gently. Hale was told the fourth 
calamity; which was that her father had busi- 
ness interests in a western State which re- 
quired his immediate attention. He was, 
therefore, forced to leave his little daughter 
in the hands of her aunt, and go to the mines 
to investigate and straighten out the tangle of 
affairs. It was a matter of his father’s es- 
tate, and concerned them all. 

She listened very gravely to the explana- 
tion. 

“And what will become of the wonderful 
play you are writing?” she asked. 

“I shall take it with me and finish it out 
there,” he said. 


16 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

^‘How long are you planning to stayT’ she 
asked, when they had talked about it calmly 
and she had agreed to be courageous. 

^‘Perhaps six months,’’ he told her; ‘‘per- 
haps a year.” 

Hale sighed heavily. 

“A year ! that’s just about forever. Of all 
the dreadful things that have happened to me 
lately that is the worst. With Mother gone 
I still had you and Miss Dwight; then Miss 
Dwight went and I thought I still had you; 
but with you gone I have no one but Aunt 
Alice, and she doesn’t care about me one mite. 
Does everybody have such a hard life?” 

“It is hard, dear one,” agreed her father, 
“but there is another side to the picture 
which you know nothing about. ’ ’ 

“What is that?” 

“In a word, it is your grandmother. You 
have never seen my mother, and I want you 
to know her before it is too late.” 

“Why have I never seen her?” asked Hale. 

“To state the matter briefly, it is because 
your Aunt Alice and I quarreled a long time 
ago.” 


A NEW OEDER 


17 


“What did you quarrel about?’’ 

“It isn’t necessary for you to know that. 
Suffice it to say that your grandmother agreed 
with Alice to the extent that she never came 
to visit us, and, I need not add, I have felt 
it would be neither wise nor kind to intrude 
upon them. ’ ’ 

“Then why does Aunt Alice come intrud- 
ing now and make me go home with her? 
Truly, Father, I’d rather go to an orphan 
asylum. Please put me in an asylum, or take 
me with you!” 

“Hush, darling! You don’t know what 
you are saying. As I have told you, I want 
you to know your grandmother. She will be 
a balm for all you can possibly suffer from 
any other source. I am very glad Aunt Alice 
wants you there, for it exactly suits my desire 
for you. Aunt Alice is not an ogre. She is 
a little strict, no doubt, and not as companion- 
able as the people you have lived with; but 
once you get used to her ways you will try to 
do what she wants you to and there will be no 
difficulty. ’ ’ 

Hale shook her head doubtfully. 


18 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

‘H’ll have to be a brave soldier with a do- 
or-die spirit, for I know I shall not want to 
do as she says/’ 

“You have some cousins out there in Haw- 
thorne who may help to make your life 
happy,” suggested her father, thinking the 
other phase of the question had been fol- 
lowed long enough. 

“Have I? How big are they?” 

“Eoy must be about your age, and Forest 
perhaps twenty or thereabout.” 

“Are they Merrills, too?” 

“No; their mother is my sister; she is now 
Hammond by narne. ’ ’ 

Hale asked a great many questions about 
the new cousins, which her father could not 
answer. The old quarrel with Alice had 
made him sensitive toward all the family and 
he had been content to devote all his atten- 
tion to his invalid wife and their little Hale. 
He remembered Forest as a little fellow, but 
Eoy had been born since he had left Haw- 
thorne. 

The thought of new cousins made a strong 
appeal to Hale, for she had a natural interest 


A NEW OEDER * 


19 


in people, and her circumscribed life had kept 
her shut away from them to a large extent. 
With her healthy curiosity regarding them, 
she could think of the new arrangements with 
better courage, and entered into the prepara- 
tions more willingly on that account. 

She refrained from asking Aunt Alice the 
volume of questions that thronged her mind, 
because the necessary packing was taking 
more time than that lady wanted to spare and 
was adding daily to her crustiness. 

All was complete at last, however, and she 
and Hale were whirled away to the station, 
with Father to hold her hands till the last 
minute and keep up her spirits with a huge 
box of candy and constantly repeated prom- 
ises to write very often. The importance of 
taking a train was enough to keep her steady 
for a time, but when the good-bys were all 
over and she realized that the cool, collected 
aunt beside her was to rule her destiny for a 
year, she lost her courage completely and 
cried all the way to Hawthorne. 


CHAPTER II 


DELIA 

T he little sMngled cottage before which 
the station auto deposited Miss Mer- 
rill and the tear-stained Hale was 
brown and weather-beaten, and hidden half 
out of sight behind lilac bushes. 

Standing alone on a hillside overlooking the 
village, it seemed to Hale a desolate refuge 
for a little girl already as homesick as a body 
could well be. A fresh supply of tears began 
to well up at the thought of all her causes for 
misery. 

‘‘There, Hale!’^ said Aunt Alice in her 
crisp way; “I think youVe cried enough for 
one while. Come, come! You dl make your- 
self sick.’’ 

Hale wished that she might make herself 
sick enough to die and escape the hardships 
of this present life; but she did her best to 
20 


DELIA 21 

crowd back her tears and stumble blindly out 
on the broad door-stone. 

The door of the little house opened, and 
some one came out to help carry in the bags, 
umbrellas, and wraps. Hale heard her aunt 
say, ‘‘This is Delia,’’ and “This is Hale.” 
She nodded sorrowfully and followed Miss 
Merrill into the house and up to her room, 
where she stood disconsolately watching the 
bestowal of her trunk and other possessions. 

‘ ‘ Take off your hat. Hale, and lay it up here 
on the shelf in the closet. Put your um- 
brella back in the far corner. I shall expect 
you to keep your things nice and tidy.” 

Hale obeyed mechanically. 

The room was really a very cozy little nook 
which Delia and Grandmother had been pre- 
paring for the new member of the family. 
Hale would have thought the gray-and-rose 
finish very pretty if she could have forgotten 
the big lump in her heart. 

“I’m going to change my dress,” said Aunt 
Alice, briskly; “then I’ll come back and help 
you unpack your trunk.” 

When she had gone Hale moved over to the 


22 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

window and looked out. Seeing the porch 
roof just below, she had for a moment a wild 
idea of escaping by its help and running, far, 
far away to find her father and beg him to 
take her with him out west — or an3rwhere but 
here. There were people talking on the porch 
below, however, so that way was cut off. 

The hill sloped gently down to a river, from 
which it rose as gently on the other side and 
climbed through orchards and grass-land up 
to the wooded hills. The very width of out- 
look made Hale feel lonesome and empty. As 
she gazed in fascinated misery, one of the 
voices on the porch became audible to her. 

Delia was saying, ‘‘The poor little thing is 
just a-breakin’ her heart for her father ’n’ 
mother, and I’m sure I don’t blame her.” 

The touch of pity was more than Hale could 
bear. She put her arm upon the casement 
and sobbed afresh. When Aunt Alice came 
back she was still standing there, though 
quieter in her grief. 

“Come, come, child! this will never do. 
You must think of something else and spunk 


DELIA 23 

up. See what a pretty view there is off there 
toward the hills. 

dreadfully lonesome,” sighed Hale, 
with a sob and a shake of her head. 

‘‘Does it seem that way to you?” asked 
Aunt Alice. 

“Yes, it does,” declared Hale with em- 
phasis. “It is lonesome and disagreeable 
and miserable and horrid; and I didn’t want 
to come, anyway.” 

“I know you didn’t.” 

Aunt Alice continued to unpack the trunk 
and put the things away in bureau and closet. 
She made no attempt to comfort her niece. 
Not that she hadn’t in her own mind a dozen 
answers to the charge that Hawthorne was 
any of the things Hale had said. Aunt Alice 
loved the place, every nook and crevice of it, 
but she did not expect Hale to agree with 
her just yet. It was hardly likely, she rea- 
soned, that a girl brought up as Hale had 
been would care for the beauties of nature. 

Well, that was only one of the many lessons 
the girl would have to learn. Miss Merrill 


24 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

sighed. To tell the truth, she felt herself to 
be quite as much an object of pity as Hale. 
The care she had undertaken would require 
a great deal of sacrifice on her part. She was 
.giving up her quiet, well-ordered existence to 
devote her energies to this odd little creature 
whose ways were likely to need a good deal 
of altering. 

To begin with. Hale must be taught that 
there were other people in the world besides 
herself. Between her mother and father and 
Miss Dwight, the child had grown up with the 
idea that the world revolved about herself and 
her little affairs. She would have to find out 
her mistake. 

‘‘She may as well begin right now,’’ 
thought Miss Merrill. “It will give her 
something to think about.” 

“Come, Hale,” she said aloud; “you may 
take the things out of this tray and put them 
away neatly in the bureau. I have some work 
to do for myself before supper. Change your 
dress for something light and come down at 
six o’clock, for Grandmother likes to be 
prompt. ’ ^ 


DELIA 


25 


When Aunt Alice had gone, Hale dried her 
tears and began to do as she had been told. 
The array of small boxes in the tray had been 
carefully packed in Aunt Alice’s most 
methodical fashion. They looked as prim 
and proper as that lady herself. 

shall expect you to keep your things 
nice and tidy,” she quoted irritably. 

She transferred the boxes to her bureau 
drawer and arranged her brushes and toilet 
articles on the wide dresser. Pictures of her 
father and mother in silver frames were also 
set out, not without a woebegone sigh, for 
Hale was very sorry for herself and would 
have been crying again but for Delia’s ap- 
pearance in the doorway. 

Delia was one of those motherly souls who 
know just what other people need to make 
them happy. The pathos of Hale’s lot in 
being removed to a strange house just when 
she had lost her mother went straight to the 
kind Irish heart of her and prompted her to 
comfort the lonely little girl in her own pecu- 
liar way. 

So there she stood in the doorway with a 


26 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

plate of cookies and a glass of milk which she 
held out invitingly. 

^‘Have a bit of a lunch T’ she asked. 

‘‘Oh, thank you, Delia. How nice of you 
to do that! Sit down a minute and have 
some with me.” 

Delia laughed an embarrassed chuckle and 
declined to sit; but she leaned against the 
bedpost and accepted a cooky just for com- 
pany’s sake. 

“Sit yourself,” she laughed. “I’ll be 
needed below stairs in a minute or two. ’ ’ 

“These are good, Delia. Did you make 
them?” asked Hale in the midst of the third 
cooky. 

“Oh, yes, dear; they’re simple enough. 
You could make them yourself without half 
trying.” 

“Dear me ! I guess I’d have to try a good 
many times before I could do very well at it. ” 

“I’ll show you some one of these days,” 
promised Delia. 

‘ ‘ Oh, will you ? How lovely ! There, that 
was delicious. Thank you so much.” 

She passed the plate and the glass back to 


DELIA 


27 


Delia, who set them on the stand by the door. 

“Would you like to have me brush your 
hair a little!^’ she asked in an eager, half- 
doubtful tone. 

“Oh, will you?” cried Hale. “I haven’t 
had my hair really brushed since Miss Dwight 
went away. You see I am not used to doing 
it myself and it’s so heavy I can’t do much 
with it.” 

Hale had slipped oif the ribbon and was 
unplaiting the braid as she spoke. She 
handed a heavy brush to Delia and dropped 
into a chair. It would be hard to say which 
was happier. Hale who had missed being 
mothered these last few weeks or Delia who 
had found a new outlet for her overflowing 
desire to do things for people. 

“Such beautiful hair!” said Delia. 

“Oh, yes, it’s rather nice. It’s all I have 
to be vain about, so I make the most of it. ’ ’ 

“Hear the child!” laughed Delia. “It’s a 
wonder the good Lord wouldn’t strike you 
blind for saying a thing like that.” 

“Well! what else have I?” demanded 
Hale, reaching for her hand-mirror. ‘ ‘ Surely 


28 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

not this little short nose or these faded-out 
eyes, or this great sprawling mouth. ’ ’ 

‘‘There, there,’’ said Delia comfortably, 
“I suppose the nose will grow longer in time, 
and when you stop crying and decide to be 
happy those eyes will do very well ; and since 
the mouth is a good big one, ’tis well the teeth 
are so neat and even. If I was you I’d not 
be castin’ slurs at me looks. It’s only a few, 
like meself, can have real beauty.” 

Hale actually laughed, which was exactly 
what Delia had planned to make her do, by 
some hook or crook. 

“What are ye laughin’ at?” demanded 
Delia after indulging in a merry peal her- 
self. “One would think to hear ye that ye 
thought I was jokin’!” 

She was o:ff again in another gale, glad to 
find Hale’s spirits lightened. 

‘ ‘ I must be gone, ’ ’ she said, when the ribbon 
had been tied and spread according to Hale ’s 
directions. “Ye’d better put on a light frock 
for supper after ye run in the bathroom and 
wash your face and hands. I’ll be ringin’ 
the gong in about twenty minutes. ’ ’ 


DELIA 


29 


‘‘She’s a friend in the enemy’s camp,” 
mused Hale gratefully, as she changed her 
dress and made herself fresh for the table. 


CHAPTER in 


GRANDMOTHER 

AS prompt as a major,’’ said Aunt 
ZjA Alice with approval ; for Hale 
-A- stepped into the sitting-room just 
as Delia was striking the gong in the hallway 
to call them to supper. 

Grandmother Merrill, as frail as a flower 
and quite as dainty, held out her hand to Hale 
and kissed her. 

^ ^Welcome to Hawthorne, my dear ! I hope 
you are going to be very happy here. ’ ’ 

Hale murmured a ‘ ‘ Thank you, ’ ’ and began 
to feel that her chances were better than she 
had supposed them to be. She stood a mo- 
ment lost in admiration of the dear little 
Grandmother whom she had never seen be- 
fore. Then Aunt Alice reminded them of the 
waiting supper and they went out. Hale quite 
naturally slipped her arm around her Grand- 
30 


GRANDMOTHEE 31 

mother waist, just as she used to support 
her mother. 

Grandmother ’s dining-room was ^ quietly 
rich in old mahogany; her table was bright 
with gleaming linen and lustrous silver ; and 
Delia’s delicious rolls and cold sliced chicken 
were satisfying in the extreme. 

It was a relief to Hale that she was not ex- 
pected to talk during this first meal in her 
new home. Grandmother and Aunt Alice 
discussed household and neighborhood affairs 
which had transpired during the latter’s ab- 
sence. Hale listened part of the time, but 
often she lost the thread of the story in watch- 
ing Grandmother. 

Hale loved all dainty things. She could 
see that Grandmother was going to be a con- 
stant delight. She loved her already, not as 
a mere relative whom she ought to love on 
principle, but as a discovery of her own. 
Her father had told her that her Grand- 
mother’s face was like a beautiful cameo, 
and she could see what he meant. She could 
see, too, that her father had a close resem- 
blance to his mother, the same straight nose 


32 HALE MEERILL’S HONEY QUEST 

and even brow that had descended by inheri- 
tance to herself. Grandmother’s mouth was 
sweet and smiling, her hair was as white as 
snow, but it still curled naturally about her 
temples and swept smoothly up under the big 
tortoise-shell comb at her crown. 

In the sitting-room after supper Aunt Alice 
kindled a blaze in the fireplace to cheer the 
September evening. Grandmother placed a 
low rocker for Hale and, seating herself in her 
own comfortable chair on the opposite side of 
the hearth, picked up her knitting and went 
quietly to work. 

Hale watched, fascinated, as Grand- 
mother’s agile fingers slipped stitch after 
stitch from one shining needle to the other. 
There was silence, except for the crackle of 
the maple logs. 

Presently Grandmother looked up and 
smiled into Hale ’s steady gaze. 

“Do you like the fire, dearie?” she asked. 

“Oh, the fire! I had forgotten it,” con- 
fessed Hale. “I was thinking about you, 
watching you knit. Do you think I could 
learn?” 


GRANDMOTHER 


33 


‘H’m sure you could, dearie; and some day, 
if you like. 111 show you. I donT suppose 
you want to begin this evening. ^ ’ 

‘‘Oh, yes; I’d love to; but I don’t want to 
hinder you,” suggested Hale. She was still 
regarding Grandmother with devouring eyes. 
What a beautiful head she had! And such 
dainty hands ! 

“I’d love to teach you, right now. You 
shall make the belt for Aunt Alice’s sweater. 
It is nearly ready for the finishing touches 
and I shall not have to give up my big 
needles.” 

With careful rapidity. Grandmother cast 
the white stitches on the needle and started 
Hale ’s fingers on their slow and painful way. 
It was an intricate bit of manipulation for 
fingers not accustomed to such work, but 
Grandmother was a patient teacher who 
laughed with girlish glee over the queer 
puckers in Hale’s forehead and the queer 
crooks in her fingers and thumbs. To make 
the lesson easier. Hale had drawn up a car- 
peted hassock close to Grandmother’s feet 
and the two bent over the work and fell more 


34 HALE MEERILL^S HONEY QUEST 

and more in love with each other every 
minute. 

‘^That^s enough for to-night, girlie,’’ de- 
clared Grandmother when Hale had managed 
to complete three ridges across the three- 
inch strip. ‘ ‘ You mustn ’t get over-tired with 
it because you wouldn’t want to take it up 
again; and I can’t bear the thought of losing 
my new pupil so soon. ’ ’ 

^‘You can’t lose me now. Grandmother. I 
think it is fun! Do you suppose I could 
make a whole sweater for myself when I get 
Aunt Alice’s belt done?” 

‘ ^ Surely you can, dearie. The stitches are 
the same, and all you need is perseverance to 
do any piece of work,” 

Grandmother went on steadily slipping off 
stitches, while Hale clasped her knees and 
gave herself up to the delight of watching 
her. She rocked slowly back and forth on her 
hassock, thinking of nothing in particular, but 
letting the homey feeling of the room and the 
group sink into her lonely spirit, even as the 
fire on the hearth warmed through her skin 
into her flesh. 


GRANDMOTHER 35 

The constant undercurrent of resentment 
which had tinged her thoughts from the mo- 
ment she had learned of what she termed her 
‘‘ exile was almost forgotten as she gave 
herself up to the enjoyment of her present 
surroundings. 

It wasn’t long before she found herself 
snuggling down to Grandmother’s knee in a 
content she had not supposed possible. 
Grandmother folded her knitting and stroked 
the dark head gently. 

hope you are not getting sleepy,” she 
said, peeping over to see if Hale’s eyes were 
shut. 

‘‘No, I’m not sleepy,” said Hale, “just 
happy. It is funny how different things can 
be from what we imagine them. I have been 
sure that coming here was going to be a hard 
and unhappy experience. Father said it 
would be nicer than I imagined, but I couldn’t 
believe him. I’ve been disagreeable inside 
for a week or so, and I guess this afternoon 
I spoke it out to Aunt Alice. Did she tell 
you?” She waited breathlessly. 

“No, dear, Aunt Alice said nothing.” 


36 HALE MEEEILL’S HONEY QUEST 

Hale gave vent to a relieved sigh which 
Grandmother was quick to detect. She 
reached over and stroked Hale’s cheek. 

can guess a little how you felt, dearie, 
so no one needs to tell me anything .about it. 
I’ll tell you a little of my own experience, so 
you may see what I mean. ’ ’ 

‘H’d love that,” said Hale, sitting bolt up- 
right. 

If Grandmother was going to tell a story. 
Hale would watch her face while she told it. 
Grandmother smiled a homey sort of smile 
and settled back in her chair, as if she, too, 
would enjoy the tale. 

must have been two or three years 
older than you are,” she began, ‘‘when I first 
left home to get more schooling. Our little 
ungraded school had done what it could for 
me, but so many different teachers had pre- 
sided over my lessons from term to term that 
I was about sixteen before I was ready for 
high school. 

“Nothing could have filled me with greater 
terror than the thought of going to a strange 
school and facing boys and girls whom I did 


GRANDMOTHER 


37 


not know. I knew they would be younger 
than I, and perhaps better prepared, and I 
felt I would rather give up being educated 
than to face such an ordeal. The thought of 
a big building in which there were several 
classrooms confused and frightened me 
quite as much. 

dreamed almost every night of some- 
thing connected with this trial that was in 
store for me. Sometimes I would be hunt- 
ing for the room I had to study in, putting 
my head into one room after another and 
being laughed at by the children who sat 
there. Sometimes I would be trying to re- 
cite before the class, and getting everything 
all wrong, again to the accompaniment of that 
jeering laughter. 

“My mother knew how I dreaded to go, 
but we both knew it was useless to complain 
to Father. His will was not often crossed 
in the household, and besides. Mother was 
very anxious for me to get a broader educa- 
tion than she had had. So it was arranged 
that I should spend the winter with Mother’s 
brother and his family in Boston. 


38 HALE MERKILL^S HONEY QUEST 

‘‘They had a son, my cousin Arthur, who 
had been in high school two years and had 
taken pains to tell me many lurid stories of 
his experiences. These stories, I found out 
afterward, were largely fiction. You know 
my cousin Arthur is still a very clever writer. 
He practised shamelessly on me. ’ ^ 

Grandmother laughed reminiscently and 
shook her head over her own gullibility. 

‘ ‘ Things were not as bad as I had pictured 
them, but I was so sure of the unhappy time 
I was to have that I could not appreciate con- 
ditions as I really found them. The young 
people were kind and friendly, but I was so 
timid that I feared to make friends. Then, 
too, I couldn’t forget my age. I can look 
back now and see that I was no larger than 
some of the fourteen-year-old freshmen, and 
much better prepared in many ways, but they 
were so sure of themselves and so chummy 
with one another that I distrusted myself and 
suffered agonies in consequence. 

“This had its effect upon my lessons, and 
I did poor work in recitations, though my 


GRANDMOTHER 


39 


written work was fairly good, especially com- 
position. I just loved my composition 
teacher and it was through her that I had the 
first great lift out of my slough of despond. 
I can never be thankful enough that the les- 
son came to me early in the first term, for it 
saved me from ‘many a foolish notion’ that 
might have spoiled my whole life. 

“We had to write a daily theme for Miss 
Carpenter, and I soon acquired the habit of 
picking up a subject on the way home from 
school, thinking it over in just the words I 
meant to use, and writing it out as soon as I 
began to prepare my lessons. 

‘ ‘ One day in late September I had to wait 
at a crossing rather longer than usual for a 
stream of traffic to pass. While I waited I 
saw at a florist’s booth on the sidewalk a huge 
bunch of mignonette which reminded me of 
my mother’s garden and brought quick tears 
to my eyes. Then, before they had time to 
fall, I brushed them away and stared in won- 
der; for over that mignonette hovered a real 
live bee. That brought back the orchard and 


40 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

the beehives and all the sweep of country 
that I loved so much at home, and the tears 
welled up again and overflowed. 

turned and hurried on, crowding back 
the tears. These city people that I hated so 
should not see me cry! At home, I left my 
lunch untasted and climbed to my little room 
at the top of the house, where my one window 
looked out over ugly flat roofs and brick pave- 
ments. How I hated the sight of them ! 

‘‘When I had had my cry out on the bed, I 
straightened up my tousled self and started 
to do my home work. Then I woke to the 
fact that I had failed to pick up a subject for 
my theme. I moped around and wasted an 
hour before it came to me that the bee would 
have to serve. Then, strangely enough, the 
words came tumbling over one another and 
when I had written them down I found they 
were in verse. I have forgotten them now, 
as I saved no copy, so all I can remember is 
the first line of each stanza and the last.” 

“What were they?” asked Hale, in breath- 
less eagerness. 


GRANDMOTHER 


41 


Grandmother patted her hands softly and 
smiled happily into her upturned face. 

‘ ^ The first line of each stanza was, 

‘‘ ‘0 bee, from the farm you have strayed far 
away, ^ 

and the last line of each, 

‘And the bee replied, “Hush! I am gathering 
honey. ’ 

<<The verses between were filled with ques- 
tionings why the bee, who could do as he 
pleased, should choose to leave the country 
where everything was beautiful and bounti- 
ful, and come to a city where nothing was 
pleasant or nice. 

‘^Of course, the verses were not good 
poetry, but Miss Carpenter saw in them some- 
thing which she could use to help me, and she 
used it. She kept me after class the next 
day and asked me to read the verses to her. 
When I had done so, she looked at me steadily 
and said, Ht is strange, my dear, that you 
yourself should write the very thought I have 
been trying to find for you.’ 


42 HALE MEREILL^S HONEY QUEST 

‘H couldn^t imagine wliat she meant, but 
she went on to explain. H have been watch- 
ing you these few weeks and I have seen that 
you are not happy here. I think you need 
just your own verses to make you see a rift 
in your clouds. The bee in the city street is 
finding his honey just as surely as if he were 
back on his native meadows. Can’t you do 
the same? Instead of worrying about the 
things you don’t like, bumping your head into 
brick walls, so to speak, why not look for the 
honey that’s to be had even on city streets? 
I know the girls here want to be friendly and 
I know they want to share their good times 
with you. There is honey for you all about, 
if you’ll only go straight to it as the bee 
did.^ 

Hale shifted her glance to the fire as the 
lesson for herself began to dawn upon her. 
Grandmother pressed her hands a little 
tighter over the girl’s folded ones and went 
on gently. 

can’t tell you how much good that little 
talk did me. Hale; and I’m passing it on to 
you because I know you will use it, too. You 


GEANDMOTHER 


43 


will find your honey in every situation of life 
if you look for it. I want you to be a wise 
little bee and go straight to the best things 
in life. Our life here will be different from 
what you are used to, but it is a life you want 
to know about. It will round you out and 
make you more of a woman than if you knew 
only city life.’’ 

Hale’s eyes were bright with tears as she 
turned them back to Grandmother. 

‘‘You are perfectly darling I” she said 
soberly, ‘ ‘ and I shall try to be sensible about 
it. With you to fly to for help, I ought to 
get along pretty well. ’ ’ 

“You will,” declared Grandmother, with 
conviction. “I can see you will make no 
half-way work of your life.” 

Before they could say more the door-bell 
rang and, without waiting for Delia to answer 
it from the kitchen, the outside door was flung 
open. Against the darkness of the night. 
Hale caught her first glimpse of her cousin. 
Forest Hammond. 


CHAPTER IV 


FOREST 

F orest was tail and handsome and 
decidedly well-groomed. Hale ran 
her eye rapidly over his face and 
figure, noting his lustrous brown eyes with 
their long lashes and heavy brows, his crisp 
upstanding hair, the fresh color in his clear 
cheeks, and the flash of white teeth as he 
called out a greeting to Grandmother. As 
Grandmother rose to meet him and he bent 
to kiss her with easy grace. Hale admitted to 
herself that he was far ahead of her ideas of 
a country cousin. 

His approval seemed equally sincere, for, 
a moment later, his hand-clasp was firm and 
cordial, and he said, 

‘^How nice to have you here for all the 
winter ! ^ ’ 

Hale thanked him as best she could and 


44 


FOREST 


45 


they all sat down before the fire. Aunt 
Alice, who had been copying household ac- 
counts, closed her books and came to join 
them with a piece of needlework. 

^^How are all the folks at your house?” 
inquired Grandmother as she resumed her 
knitting. 

In the conversation which followed. Hale 
took little part, but she was an eager lis- 
tener. Many of the questions which her 
father could not answer and which she had 
not ventured to ask Aunt Alice were an- 
swered for her. Her father had been right 
about the ages of Aunt Nan^s children, so 
Hale really had a cousin about her own age, 
besides this very splendid young man. 

Roy had been frankly curious to see the new 
cousin. Forest told them. He had planned 
to come this very evening, but his father had 
restrained him because of a little job that 
must be finished before Sunday. Of course, 
Roy had had all the week to do the work, 
stacking some firewood, but he had procras- 
tinated as usual. No doubt he would be over 
before church in the morning. 


46 HALE MEEEILL’S HONEY QUEST 

‘‘Tell him to come to breakfast/’ suggested 
Grandmother. 

As they talked about many things, Hale 
began to wonder what this splendid cousin 
of hers busied himself about, yet she did not 
like to ask. She was glad, then, when the 
conversation drifted back to personal affairs 
and Grandmother asked how his classes were 
getting along. 

“I have my time all full, except the one 
hour a week I have been saving for Hale. 
I might have filled that, too, if I had not 
promised you I’d save it till Hale came. 
With my conservatory lesson once a week and 
six hours a day for my own practice, I’m 
as busy as a bee when the clover is in bloom.” 

Grandmother smiled down at Hale and 
lifted a threatening finger. 

“You see what we have planned for you!” 
she said. “Forest has promised to give you 
piano lessons. Would that interest you?” 

“Oh, yes; I have already taken a few les- 
sons.” 

“Perhaps we might settle on a time for the 
lessons,” suggested Forest, whipping out a 


FOREST 


47 


note-book in a businesslike way that im- 
pressed Hale with a sense of his impor- 
tance. 

They decided upon Wednesdays at four 
0 ^clock. 

‘^Let^s have some music now, if you feel 
like it,^’ said Grandmother. Aunt Alice led 
the way across the hall and turned on the 
lights in the parlor. 

Hale thought the room was lovely. It ex- 
tended the whole depth of the house, which 
made it twice as long as the sitting-room; yet, 
being low-studded, it had a cozy air* The 
furniture was old mahogany, even to the 
grand piano which filled the space between 
the windows. The windows were draped in 
Brussels net. The electric lights were clever 
imitations of candles in brackets on either 
side of the big mirror on the chimney and at 
convenient locations along the walls. 

Hale could hardly keep from exclaiming 
aloud. She gave vent to her pleasure by a 
hard squeeze on Grandmother’s hand, which 
she was holding at the moment. Grand- 
mother squeezed back in sympathetic under- 


48 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

standing. Hale felt sure she, too, was think- 
ing of the bee and the honey. 

When Forest sat down at the piano Hale 
forgot alLelse. He ran a few arpeggios up 
and down and then broke into a lovely Hun- 
garian dance. Grandmother sat where she 
could watch his face. Aunt Alice hung over 
the piano and never took her eyes from his 
flying fingers, but Hale dropped upon a con- 
venient chair and hugged herself to keep 
from dancing. She watched her cousin’s 
hands, and his face, and his figure ; then she 
watched Grandmother and Aunt Alice and 
saw them both in rapt attention. 

Presently the dance was finished and For- 
est dropped quietly into a plaintive searching 
song without words that made Hale grip her- 
self even tighter and swallow a lump in her 
throat. After that, there were other themes 
in rich variety, through all of which the little 
audience sat speechless, and Forest seemed 
oblivious of their presence. 

When he had played to the end of his fancy, 
he turned to Hale. 

‘‘You play something now,” said he. 


FOEEST 


49 


I couldn’t. I wouldn’t for any- 
thing, after that.” 

‘‘Nonsense!” laughed Forest. “Of course 
you will. I’m not a hit critical, except when 
I’m teaching.” 

Hale was not to be persuaded. She had 
learned to play a little, but she blushed to 
think of her labored etforts beside his easy 
perfection. 

“Then will you play an accompaniment for 
a violin solo T ’ he begged. 

Hale was about to decline, but she caught 
a glance from Grandmother which made her 
think of the bee and the honey. Perhaps this 
was one of her good things in life. She rose 
and went to the piano. 

They found a folio of very simple music 
that Hale could read, and she performed bet- 
ter than she had feared. It would not do to 
disappoint Forest or Grandmother, so she 
gave herself assiduously to the work and sur- 
prised herself by her ability to keep up with 
the violin. 

Forest’s comment at the close of their little 
program gave her a thrill of delight. 


50 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

‘^You have the making of a good accom- 
panist,” he assured her. 

When he had gone and Grandmother dis- 
covered how late it was, she suggested bed 
for all of them. It was, however, a long time 
before Hale composed herself to sleep. The 
good cry she had promised herself was 
wholly forgotten. Instead of it, she hummed 
snatches of Forest’s music as she prepared 
for bed; and long after the house was dark 
and still she continued to picture him as he 
sat at the keyboard and drew out gladness 
and sorrow as the humor of the moment 
seized him. 

‘‘Music lessons and knitting lessons and 
school,” she mused as she dropped off to 
sleep. “I wonder if Roy will be as nice as 
Forest r’ 


CHAPTER V 


EOT 

T hat nttle remark of Grandmother’s 
about having Roy in for breakfast 
on Sunday morning did not go un- 
noticed. 

Roy’s disgust at being forced to complete 
his procrastinated chore was the more ardent 
because he had promised himself all the week 
that he would see his new cousin at once. 
Roy was, as Forest had said, decidedly 
curious to meet Hale, which was the very 
reason that his father selected that particular 
occasion to drive home the lesson of neglected 
tasks. 

Forest played the part of a good brother 
and earned Roy’s everlasting gratitude by 
waking him out of a sound sleep to repeat 
Grandmother ’s invitation. 

‘‘Bully for Grandmother,” said Roy, pop- 
si 


52 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

ping his eyes wide open. ‘H’ll be there as 
sure as doomsday.” 

Thinking it over before he dropped off 
again, he wondered if it might not be the 
safest course to get away before the family 
was astir, on the theory that you never can 
tell when your father or your mother will put 
on their specs and discover some job that you 
ought to have done last week and didn’t do. 

Thus it happened that a tallish lad of four- 
teen, with a slight tendency to stoop, crept 
quietly down the back stairs and out through 
the kitchen that Sunday morning, stopping 
on the doorstep to put on the shoes he car- 
ried in his hand. 

His thick chestnut hair had very evidently 
missed connections with his brush, and truth 
compels the "urther fact that his face had not 
touched water. Perhaps at so early an hour 
such points ought to be overlooked. In Roy’s 
mind they certainly held very little place. 
His merry brown eyes were just as bright 
and his freckled face just as rosy as if all the 
minute details had been carefully attended to. 

He puckered his lips for a moment, and 


KOY 


53 


though the whistle he emitted was only a faint 
breath, for the sake of caution, it was enough 
to call to his feet a shaggy brown dog, neither 
collie nor English sheep but something be- 
tween the two, who jumped in delight to sig- 
nify his willingness to be a partner in what- 
ever plan Eoy might be considering. 

Together they went on the leap and the 
jump through the village and up the hill to 
Grandmother’s house. As Eoy had expected, 
the house was closed and quiet, so he and Ted 
made themselves at home on the porch steps 
and waited till Delia came and opened the 
front door to let in the fresh air. 

‘‘Hello, Delia,” said Eoy, hopping up. 
“Where’s Hale?” 

‘ ‘ She ’s abed and asleep. Where would the 
boy suppose she’d be?” laughed Delia. 
“Think of coming to call on a young lady at 
this time o’ the morn.” 

“Eats! Delia; she isn’t a young lady. Is 
she any bigger ’n me ? Say 1 ’ ’ 

“No, to be honest with you, she’s a good 
bit smaller, I ’ll be bound. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Say, couldn ’t you go and wake her up and 


54 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

tell her to come on out and see a fel- 
low ? ’ ’ 

‘‘Hear the lad! What would Miss Alice 
say to that I Run along home and come over 
like a gentleman this afternoon.” 

“No, sir!” Roy declined with emphasis. 
“Grandmother invited me to breakfast and 
I’m going to stay.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, is that how it stands ? ’ ’ grinned Delia. 
“Then it behooves me to cook up an extra 
dish o ’ mush. Be quiet, you and your beast, 
for the ladies won’t be wantin’ to get up till 
quite a while yet.” 

Delia was not surprised to see him stroll 
around the house presently and take up his 
position on the back steps. 

“I suppose ye think I don’t know what 
ye’re there for,” she said, coming out to him 
with a huge square of gingerbread. “Give 
a few scraps to the dog just for politeness’ 
sake, and don’t let me hear another word out 
o’ ye.” 

In spite of this injunction, the sharing of 
the lunch between boy and dog was a noisy 
process. Ted spoke aloud for every bit he 


EOY 55 

received and more than once Delia admon- 
ished them through the window, urging quiet. 

None of them saw a little girl in a blue 
kimono creep to the window overlooking the 
ell and stand there looking down on the boy 
and the dog. Haleys sleep had been rudely 
broken by the sharp demands of Ted, and 
guessing that Roy might be down there she 
decided to get up and see. 

The picture pleased her very much. Roy, 
his cap on the back of his head and his eyes 
shining happily, was holding up his last piece 
of the cake just out of Ted^s reach. The dog 
was standing on his hind legs, with forepaws 
braced against Roy’s knees, reaching as high 
as he could for the bite. Of course, a sharp 
bark was the natural result, and the mor- 
sel quickly disappeared into Ted’s insatiable 
mouth. 

Hale lingered at the window to watch the 
rough-and-tumble frolic which followed. It 
was hard to say which was the more graceful 
and agile, the boy or the dog, as they leaped 
and ducked, dodged and scampered. The 
girl’s blood beat faster just to watch the gay 


56 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

scrimmage, and when the romp took them out 
of her sight around the corner of the house 
she decided to get dressed at once and find 
them. 

^‘Yes, darlin’, they’re out there some- 
where; you’ll find them,” said Delia. ^^Go 
on.” 

So Hale found them, down by the road, 
where Ted fancied he had ‘‘treed” a squirrel. 
He was barking furiously up into a walnut- 
tree against which one foot was braced while 
the other hung in an inquiring attitude, like 
a tilted question-mark. Roy, egging him on 
to believe that the squirrel would drop down 
to him if he only barked loudly enough, did 
not at first see Hale. When he discovered 
that she was near, he clapped his hands and 
ran to meet her. Ted, also, forgot his quarry 
and came to inspect her. 

“Are you Hale?” asked the boy, not quite 
knowing how to begin, and a bit confused as 
to whether a handshake would be proper for 
a little girl cousin. 

“Yes, and are you Roy?” she answered, 
putting out her hand. 


EOY 


57 


Eoy shook it awkwardly and they both felt 
the embarrassment of not knowing what to 
say next. 

Ted, however, wag seldom afflicted that 
way. He had decided to take Hale for a 
friend and signified his intention by licking 
her hand. The jump of surprise and the 
laughing explanation which followed this act 
cleared the air wonderfully and blew away all 
traces of stiffness between them. Eoy began 
to talk of the dog and put him through his 
tricks, which, though nothing very wonderful, 
were highly suitable for the present occasion. 

He could shake hands, play dead, roll over, 
bring back sticks that were thrown, and leap 
into the air to catch a stick tossed straight up. 

Hale had to be initiated into the proper 
form of address to bring forth each trick. 
When he brought back to her the stick she 
had thrown, she tried to get it from him to 
throw again. 

‘‘Bring it here,’’ she said. But Ted only 
looked at her with watchful eyes and re- 
peatedly dodged her attempts to take it from 
his mouth. 


58 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

That’s not the way, Hale,” Roy informed 
her. ‘^He will drop it only when you say 
certain special words. Now look! Drop it, 
Ted,” he said quietly. 

The sly cunning in Ted’s eyes changed to a 
friendly softness as he trotted straight up to 
Roy and, laying the stick at his feet, tossed 
his head up and down in eager appeal to the 
boy to throw it again. 

‘^How wise he is!” cried Hale. 

Probably in all Hale’s life she had never 
before approached her breakfast with such a 
ravenous appetite. It had been no uncom- 
mon thing for her to have breakfast in bed. 
The ruling theory of her life, due to constant 
repetition by her family, was that she was a 
delicate child and must save her strength so 
that she would not be an invalid like her 
mother. If, then, she felt a little tired or 
lazy on waking in the morning, she had only 
to say so and breakfast was brought to her. 
In case she went to the dining-room for it, 
she always went right from her own room, 
and frequently not till her father and Miss 
Dwight had finished. The solitary meal was 


EOY 


59 


not much more than tasted, greatly to the 
distress of Maude, the pretty little dining- 
room girl, who tried to coax her to eat more. 
Never before had Hale romped with a hoy 
and a dog before breakfast ; yet she took to it 
naturally enough. 

When Delia called them they were down at 
the end of the orchard where Ted, spying 
some sign of life in the grass, had led them to 
investigate. Of course their shoes were wet 
with dew and their hands smeared and sticky 
from constantly handling the sticks for Ted. 
Delia straightened them out in about three 
minutes. 

‘‘Hale, my girl, run up-stairs and put on 
your slippers, then smooth up your hair and 
wash your hands. 1^11 get this boy clean in 
about a minute, for therein be trouble if 
ye’re either of ye late at table.” 

Eoy was glad that Hale was not there to 
see by what drastic measures Delia fulfilled 
her promise in regard to himself. First she 
made him take off his boots and put on a 
pair of her own carpet slippers, kept in a 
handy bag behind the washroom door for 


60 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

days when her shoes seemed too small. The 
scrubbing which was then administered to his 
grimy paws was not the first of its kind that 
she had given Roy. 

^‘Ouch there, Heel! I say! don’t hold me 
so tight! That hurts!” 

Stand up here then, you young eel, and 
don’t pull away till I say they’re clean. It’s 
your own fault. Come now, we have to be 
in a hurry. Quit laughin’,” cautioned Delia, 
poking his head down over a fresh bowl of 
water and giving it such a ducking as Roy 
was not likely to serve himself with. 

‘ ^ Hi there ! Quit ! Say, I ’ll wash my face 
and do it well, too.” 

‘‘All right,” agreed Delia, the more will- 
ingly because at that very moment a bell rang 
to signify that Miss Merrill and her mother 
were at the table ready for Delia to bring in 
the cereal. 

Roy knew what that bell meant; he had 
heard it before when he had been in precisely 
similar predicaments; but as on other oc- 
casions he had usually succeeded in getting 
there by the skin of his teeth, so now he man- 


ROY 


61 


aged to dry his hands and face, at least par- 
tially, and fly to the washroom for a few 
strokes of the brush over his tawny mop, 
while Delia was transferring the mush from 
the tireless cooker to the serving-dish. 

He squeezed into the dining-room just 
ahead of her, and said ‘^Good morning’’ over 
the back of his chair even as Hale appeared 
from the hall and made a dash for hers. 

Grandmother held out a hand to clasp his 
for a moment after they sat down, and smiled 
in a comically resigned way to find it still 
damp. Aunt Alice caught the glance and she, 
also, looked resigned, but not comically so. 

‘Ht’s a wonder he’s presentable at all,” 
she said, in a tone which Hale interpreted to 
mean that she would rather enjoy it if there 
could be found some excuse for sending him 
away. ^ ^ What were you doing down there in 
the orchard! It looked to me as if Ted was 
digging a hole.” 

^Ht wasn’t a new hole. Aunt Alice. There 
was a hole already there, a woodchuck-hole, 
I guess ; and Ted was trying to make it large 
enough to root out the little beast. Gee ! did 


62 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

you see him dig? The dirt just flew in all 
directions I ^ ’ 

‘‘DonT say ‘gee,’ Roy!” cautioned Aunt 
Alice. 

“Excuse me,” murmured Roy and applied 
himself with great vigor to his mush. 

“Don’t eat so fast, and don’t spatter that 
way. Take up just enough so it won’t over- 
flow the spoon.” 

“’S ’m.” 

Roy moderated his speed and did his best 
to keep himself within the limits of Aunt 
Alice’s code as he understood it. Grand- 
mother came to his rescue with questions of 
home and school and drew Hale into the con- 
versation as well. 

After breakfast there was a question of 
church. Hale was going with Grandmother 
and Aunt Alice, so she learned. 

“I’ll have to go home and change my 
clothes if I go,” said Roy. 

“Run along then,” suggested Aunt Alice; 
“you’ll have just about time enough.” 

So Roy whistled for Ted and went racing 
with him down the hill, while Hale watched 


ROY 


63 


from the porch and waved her hand when Roy 
turned to wave his before he struck into the 
main road. 


I 


CHAPTER VI 


GETTING ADJUSTED 

O N Monday morning Hale woke feel- 
ing tired and listless. The unusual 
excitement of Saturday and Sunday 
was, she felt, reason enough for her languid 
feelings. 

Sunday had been a busy day, beginning 
with Roy^s visit, followed by church service 
and a family dinner at her cousin’s, where 
she met Uncle Henry and Aunt Nan for the 
first time. 

Uncle Henry was, certainly, most unlike 
her father. It made her homesick afresh to 
compare the two. He was quiet, almost 
gloomy, throughout the dinner, speaking only 
to answer direct questions, or to correct Roy’s 
not too modest table manners. He listened 
to the conversation with a critical meditative 
expression, as if he could vastly improve its 
value if he chose to open his mouth, if he 

64 


GETTING ADJUSTED 65 

thought it worth while to exert himself that 
much. 

Hale wondered if Roy could possibly love 
him the way she loved her father. How it 
was possible she could not imagine. For her 
part, he froze her to the core; she couldnT 
think of much else but the bare fact of his 
presence at first. Roy didnT seem to be 
noticeably in awe of him, even when his table 
manners were overhauled. 

Aunt Nan was a cheerful, hospitable soul, 
who laughed a great deal and put Hale at 
ease whenever she spoke to her. She had a 
delightful way of drawing her into the con- 
versation every now and then, if only by a 
friendly ‘‘me-to-you’^ smile that reminded 
Hale of her father. 

Hale tried to keep her attention fixed on 
Aunt Nan, though it was frequently inter- 
rupted by Roy, who poked her to make her 
listen to some remark of his or to show her 
how he could balance his knife on his napkin 
ring. As such nudgings invariably directed 
the reproving glance of his father on them 
both. Hale found them uncomfortable atten- 


66 HALE MEEEILL’S HONEY QUEST 

tions and tried to avoid answering them ; hnt 
Eoy was irrepressible and the strain of the 
situation wearied Hale. 

She was glad when they got away from the 
table and could move and speak apart from 
the critical silence of her uncle. Eoy had 
hoards of treasures to show her. These he 
kept in a room irreverently called the ‘ ‘ Scrap- 
heap’’ by other members of the family, be- 
cause the value of its contents was as nothing 
in their eyes. Eoy, on the contrary, set a 
high value on every separate contraption and 
would discard none of them. 

When he enticed Hale up-stairs to his re- 
treat and started upon an explanation of the 
several “inventions” that he had made, it 
was an afternoon’s occupation. He made it 
exceedingly interesting, though Hale knew 
nothing of mechanical things. She listened 
sympathetically and was truly sorry when he 
came, as he repeatedly did, to the same sad 
ending, “but somehow I can’t make it work 
yet.” 

When Grandmother and Aunt Alice decided 


GETTING ADJUSTED 67 

it was time to go home, Hale was pretty well 
tired out and glad to go to bed early. 

Waking up tired, she tried to sleep again, 
but instead she lay thinking over yesterday’s 
experiences. 

Presently Aunt Alice came to her door. 

‘‘Are you awake. Hale?” 

“Yes,” she answered. 

She heard her aunt go down-stairs, but de- 
cided it wasn’t necessary to get up yet. The 
bed felt very good, so she stretched luxuri- 
ously and gave herself up to the enjoyment of 
it. The next thing she realized, she was 
opening her eyes at the sound of the gong in 
the lower hall. 

“Can that be breakfast !” she asked herself 
sleepily. 

A glance at her watch assured her that it 
was, so she reluctantly rolled out of bed. 

Dressing was a leisurely ceremony with 
Hale always; and this was a lazy feeling 
morning. Moreover, she found it confusing 
to realize that the whole problem of what to 
wear now depended upon herself. At home. 


68 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

Miss Dwight would have had her dress laid 
out, with a fresh collar basted in. The but- 
ton she tore off her shoe last night would have 
been replaced as if by magic and when all was 
in readiness Hale would have been called and 
asked to decide whether she wished to break- 
fast in bed or in the dining-room. Until this 
new order of living had crossed her path, she 
had never considered any other arrangement 
possible; but she was learning by practical 
demonstration that her aunt did not intend to 
assume any responsibility regarding her per- 
sonal care. 

She was, this morning, to receive still 
further enlightenment on the subject of what 
her aunt expected of her. 

Descended to the dining-room, she was as- 
tonished to find the table cleared and no one 
in sight. Opening the door into the kitchen, 
she found Delia washing jelly tumblers which 
Aunt Alice had brought up from the cellar. 

^‘Where’s my breakfast, Delia?” she asked, 
glancing toward the stove where she fully ex- 
pected to see it awaiting her in the warming 
closet. 


GETTING ADJUSTED 


69 


At that moment Aunt Alice appeared from 
the cellar with another basket of tumblers. 
She answered for Delia. 

There are some muffins in the pantry on 
a plate, and you may use that butter, ^ ’ point- 
ing to a few scraps on a saucer. ‘‘Sit down 
over there by the window. ’ ’ 

Hale found the muffins and took up the sau- 
cer of butter, which she thought wasnT half 
enough. She found, also, that the muffins 
were left over from yesterday ^s baking and 
were rather harder than she liked. 

When Aunt Alice had gone from the room, 
she ventured to question Delia. 

“Was this all they had for their break- 
fast?^’ 

“No ; they had melons, and boiled eggs, and 
batter-cakes with maple sirup, besides cof- 
fee.” 

“Why can’t I have some of those things?” 
asked Hale in an injured tone. 

“That was Miss Alice’s orders,” Delia 
said; “bread and butter for late comers.” 

Hale’s impulse was to make a protest. She 
would certainly have done so at home, but her 


70 HALE MEERILL’S HONEY QUEST 

company manners came to her rescue and 
she swallowed her indignation along with a 
dry crust of muffin and washed them both 
down with a drink of water. Then consult- 
ing the little watch on her wrist, she decided 
it was time to start for her first day of school 
in Hawthorne. Roy had promised to meet 
her at eight-thirty and it was close to that 
now. 

It was not a very happy Hale who went 
through the hall to find her hat. She was not 
even in a mood to step into the sitting-room 
to see if Grandmother was there ; but she met 
her on the porch taking her morning cup of 
air. Hale smiled faintly through her gloom. 
Grandmother tried to soothe her with a kiss. 

^H^m sorry it happened this way; but Aunt 
Alice is very particular about the day’s pro- 
gram,” she said sympathetically. ^‘You’ll 
soon learn to fall in with the routine, I’m 
sure.” 

Hale brushed away a tear or two and hur- 
ried off. 

Aunt Alice evidently considered the lesson 
sufficient without comment, for she never re- 


GETTING ADJUSTED 


71 


ferred to it in any way ; and for that Hale was 
grateful. She soon learned to hop out of bed 
at the first call and begin her dressing. The 
bread-and-butter reminder did not have to be 
used again, though there were several nar- 
row escapes. Once after struggling with her 
hair longer than usual, she found herself be- 
lated and slipped into her kimono. Her ap- 
pearance in that attire was greeted by strong 
disapproval. 

Not in that garb, Hale said Aunt Alice, 
sternly. ‘‘We don’t come to the table in neg- 
ligee and I can’t allow you to. Don’t let me 
speak of it again. ’ ’ 

Hale returned to her room and put on her 
dress, deeply resenting what she called being 
“cornered.” Aunt Alice had a way of pro- 
hibiting all courses of action except the one 
she wished to have followed. There was 
nothing for it but to become as methodical 
and precise as the lady herself, to keep peace 
in the family. Hale wanted to scream at the 
very idea. Everything must be done at a 
definite time and in a definite way ; which was 
contrary to Hale’s easy-going fashion. 


72 HALE MEEEILL^S HONEY QUEST 

Her one consolation was that Grandmother 
was there to smooth her ruffled feelings. 
While never openly criticizing Aunt Alice’s 
methods, she silently gave her the sympathy 
she needed, or dropped a quiet hint about the 
sweetening powers of honey. 


CHAPTER VII 


SCHOOL 


CLASSROOM full of children her 



own age was a thing Hale had never 


seen until that Monday morning in 
Hawthorne when she met Roy at the corner 
and went with him through the noisy school 
yard and up to Mr. Stickney’s office. 

The high school, which was in the same 
building with the grades, opened its sessions 
half an hour earlier than they. It happened 
on this important day that Roy and Hale came 
in just as Mr. Stickney was leaving his office 
to go across the hall to the assembly room 
where the entire high school was waiting for 
him to open the session with devotional ex- 
ercises. 

‘H’ll be back in a few minutes,’’ he said, 
motioning to the couch; ‘‘sit down, both of 
you. ’ ’ 

As they waited. Hale grew more and more 


73 


74 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

nervous over the ordeal that awaited her. 
Roy was in his usual good spirits and did his 
best to cheer her up. 

‘‘Look pleasant, please,” he said, pulling 
his cap over his face and tunneling one hand 
to his eye while he snapped the fingers of his 
free hand. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Roy!” she laughed. 

“That’s fine,” he continued; “now lift the 
chin a little and throw out the chest. Now, 
just that way till the little birdie comes out of 
the box.” 

“Roy, stop! I’m so nervous. I’ll get to 
laughing and won’t be able to stop. What’s 
that!” 

“Gee! but you are nervous,” he said, sit- 
ting down beside her and twirling his cap on 
his index finger. “That’s only the high 
school saying the Lord’s Prayer. He’ll be 
back in a minute now.” 

Hale’s inflated courage collapsed like a 
punctured balloon as she heard the returning 
steps. Mr. Stickney put his hand on Roy’s 
head and shook it familiarly. 

“Well, Mr. Hammond! what’s the story?” 


SCHOOL 


75 


‘‘This is my cousin, Hale Merrill,’^ said 
Koy. “She’s going to live here this winter 
and she doesn’t know where she belongs in 
school, because she never went before.” 

“All right, young man. You sit down here 
and wait for her, so when we find out you can 
take her there. Now then; Hale, did you 
sayT’ 

Mr. Stickney motioned her to a chair at the 
long table and placed a card before her. 

“Suppose you write it for me.” 

“What, sir?” asked Hale, slightly con- 
fused. 

“Your name, please, on this line.” 

Hale wrote it, and several other things, 
such as her address and her age, her father’s 
name and occupation. There was nothing 
very hard about that. 

Presently she had to answer some questions 
and that was not so easy. Sometimes it was 
rather funny, as when Mr. Stickney asked her 
how far along in the arithmetic she had stud- 
ied. Of course, she meant to say “Propor- 
tions,” but when she said “Prepositions,” 
Mr. Stickney raised his eyebrows question- 


76 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

ingly, and Hale was sure she heard a stifled 
giggle from the couch. 

Mr. Stickney tactfully turned the answer to 
good account by saying, ^ ‘ Then you know the 
parts of speech U’ and Hale was glad she 
could answer, ‘‘Yes.’^ 

‘Ht seems that you belong in the ninth 
grade, so Ifll place you there to begin with. 
If after a week or so you find that you have 
had the work, you can try an examination for 
the high school.’^ 

Hale gasped. ‘ ‘ Oh, I know I am not ready 
for high school, ’ ^ she hastened to assure him. 

Mr. Stickney found this was true on the 
whole, for while she was above the average 
ninth-grade child in reading and history and 
composition, she was surprisingly below the 
standards in grammar and arithmetic. 

‘‘That will adjust itself satisfactorily, I am 
sure,’^ he said kindly. “On second thought, 
Roy, I guess Ifll take Hale down to Miss 
Marsh’s room. I have an errand there. You 
may run out now. ’ ’ 

Hale’s quick sensibility told her that Mr. 
Stickney had kept Roy with them only that 


SCHOOL 


77 


she might not feel the strangeness of her new 
surroundings. Her admiration of him dated 
from that minute. 

She would have been even more grateful if 
she could have heard what he said to Miss 
Marsh as the two stepped out into the hall 
after Hale had been assigned a seat in the 
otherwise empty classroom. She would have 
understood why it was a full week before Miss 
Marsh called her to her feet before the class. 

Those first few days were trying enough, 
even with the way made smooth in places 
where Mr. Stickney could do it. The hard 
wooden seat and narrow quarters of a school 
desk were tortures for which Hale had no 
previous training. How she longed for the 
cushioned window-seat in the library at home 
where she and Miss Dwight had read and 
studied! The close air made her head feel 
queer, and the strange boys and girls so near 
made her afraid to lift her eyes from her 
book. 

She was interested in them individually; it 
was only in the mass that they oppressed her. 
Surely there was nothing awesome about 


78 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

queer little Charlie Thresher, who never stud- 
ied if he could avoid it, and who, in the shelter 
of his desk, was forever folding paper strips 
into Jacob ’s-ladder spirals. Hale watched 
him play with these in various ways. The 
wide ones were, in his imagination, accordi- 
ons which he pulled back and forth, the tiny 
ones were caterpillars which he poked along 
on the desk. 

Such a funny little monkey Hale had never 
seen before. If Miss Marsh patiently or im- 
patiently reminded him of his work, Charlie 
hustled the whole lot into his desk and made 
a great show of injured innocence. As soon 
as her attention was directed elsewhere 
Charlie had the outfit in operation again, 
glancing slyly across the aisle to make sure 
that Hale was taking note of Lis indifference 
to correction. 

Marion Shedd, who sat in the back seat, 
could draw pictures almost as fast as Charlie 
could make paper ladders. These she labeled 
with queer names and laid them on selected 
desks as she passed up and down the aisle 
collecting or passing the lesson-papers. 


SCHOOL 


79 


Martha Holmes, Hale ’s left-hand neighbor, 
nearly always had a bag of candy which 
gained her many friends. Hale saw that cer- 
tain people were favored, but never quite un- 
derstood the system till one morning toward 
the end of the week she saw a piece of paper 
held low across the aisle toward her. The 
paper was scooped to prevent the escape of a 
large chocolate drop, and across the top was 
written, ‘‘Do me the second example.^’ So 
that was it I Hale made short work of the 
candy and copied the example from her own 
paper, passing it back in the same cautious 
way. 

Between Clara Grant, who sat behind 
Charlie Thresher, and Henry Nelson, who sat 
in front of Martha Holmes, a brisk flirtation 
was in progress which involved the passing 
of numerous notes. Hale lent herself gra- 
ciously to the important role of letter-carrier 
when she found it was expected of her. She 
became quite adept at choosing her moments 
for the delivery of Cupid ^s mail and very 
quick at passing the sentimental messages. 
She looked upon it as part of her education 


80 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

as a public-school child and was anxious to do 
anything to show her friendly spirit. 

Gradually the strangeness wore off, till 
Hale dared to look abroad upon the whole 
class and feel herself a part of it. She spent 
much time in studying Miss Marsh. It 
seemed to her that she had never seen a less 
interesting person. Miss Marsh’s broad, 
square face wore always the same expression, 
varied on rare occasions by a frown if things 
went wrong, but not very often by a smile. 

Hale tried to penetrate the meaning of that 
face. She imitated its expression as best she 
could, and tried to read the feeling that came 
to her as a result. 

have it,” she said at last; ‘‘it’s a cow! 
just dull and contented like a cow chewing her 
cud. No wonder the lessons are the same 
thing over and over. If she ’d ever move out 
of her chair you might hope for a bit of 
change.” 

Miss Marsh was a landmark in the Haw- 
thorne school. She had taught the fathers 
and mothers of some of the children in Hale’s 
class. Her methods of teaching were con- 


SCHOOL 


81 


sidered good in their day; that is, she kept 
good order in her classes and caused her pu- 
pils to memorize the year’s work. Eules for 
arithmetical operations were her chief de- 
light, with history dates a close second. Cap- 
itals and largest cities, with the principal pro- 
ducts of each state or country, were her idea 
of geography essentials. 

While other teachers might anticipate with 
dread the periodical visits of the committee- 
man who should examine their classes on a 
term’s work. Miss Marsh went placidly on 
her way, confident that her pupils would make 
a creditable showing. 

She had extended no welcoming hand to the 
changes that had come gradually into meth- 
ods of teaching. New-fangled notions were, 
she felt sure, merely fads and they would not 
show results like the old reliable methods. 

have all I can do, as it is, to cover the 
year’s work without trying any new dodges,” 
she would say. 

Many principals had come and gone during 
Miss Marsh’s reign in the ninth-grade room, 
because Hawthorne was a good stepping- 


82 HALE MEERILL^S HONEY QUEST 

stone for ambitious young principals. Each 
in turn had lifted inquiring eyebrows upon 
hearing her answer, and that always ended 
the matter. Of course, Miss Marsh was an 
excellent teacher — ^most excellent — and her 
methods must not be questioned to the point 
of hurting her feelings. One could only sug- 
gest. 

Mr. Stickney, who was particularly alive to 
the needs of young people, shrugged his 
shoulders visibly on his way back to his office 
after a visit in the ninth-grade room. 

‘‘Dull,’^ he said to himself, ‘‘deadly dull! 
but what can you do I An excellent teacher, 
no doubt, but lacking in imagination.^’ 

So Miss Marsh’s classes continued to be 
well-ordered mechanical units who learned 
facts and recited them to their teacher’s en- 
tire satisfaction. 


CHAPTEE Vin 


A SENSATION 

T he dullness of the afternoons in the 
ninth-grade room was an experience 
to be dreaded and lived through by 
forgetting it, if possible. 

In the first place, Miss Marsh always came 
back from her lunch feeling sleepy and dull. 
Hale knew this even before she overheard her 
tell Miss Blair of the eighth grade that she 
always wanted a nap after lunch more than 
she wanted anything else. 

In the second place, the sun was always 
around on the other side of the building and 
the room often grew too dark for comfort be- 
fore closing time. 

Added to these was the fact that Miss 
Marsh had no interest in the afternoon sub- 
jects and made no attempt to vary them or 
make them interesting. Somewhere in the 
course of her training Miss Marsh must have 
83 


84 HALE MEERILL’S HONEY QUEST 

been advised to arrange her program in such 
a way that subjects requiring least mental 
strain should be studied in the afternoon. So 
be it ! Miss Marsh decided in favor of read- 
ing, writing, and English, which Hale found 
was sometimes grammar and sometimes the 
writing of compositions. 

So far, so good; but Miss Marsh had evi- 
dently interpreted the formula about mental 
strain to mean that she herself was to make 
no effort. 

She gave out a reading-lesson something 
like this: ‘^We will read to-day on page 
ninety-one, I guess; yes, that^s a good lesson 
for to-day^’; as if she had never thought of it 
before. When it came to the recitation. Hale 
thought she never could stand it. One pupil 
would read one paragraph, in almost any 
fashion so long as he called the words cor- 
rectly, and Miss Marsh would give a dull as- 
sent and pass on to the next. 

Not so had the lessons on the cushioned 
window-seat progressed under Miss Dwight’s 
careful ear. How homesick Hale used to get 
for her mother and Miss Dwight while nearly 


A SENSATION 


85 


falling asleep trying to follow the monoton- 
ous drone. She tried to comfort herself with 
the hope that once she began to take her part 
in the recitations things might look brighter. 

Miss Marsh, being a very literal person, 
had taken Mr. Stickney at his word. He had 
said it might be best not to ask Hale for a 
recitation for a week or so, unless she volun- 
teered one. The week was a simple matter, 
but the ‘‘or so’’ gave Miss Marsh some 
trouble. Having given it careful considera- 
tion, she decided that “or so” might mean 
less than a week or it might mean more, but 
to be on the safe side she would wait till 
Wednesday. 

On Wednesday afternoon, then, of Hale’s 
second week, in the midst of the sleepy cere- 
mony called the reading-lesson. Hale heard 
her name spoken and realized that she was 
expected to read the next paragraph. 

The lesson was a selection from “Ivanhoe,” 
that passage which records the test of archery 
between the outlaw who names himself Locks- 
ley and the forester Hubert. 

In Hale’s mind the words had painted a 


86 HALE MEREILL^S HONEY QUEST 

vivid picture in days gone by. “Ivanhoe’’ 
had been a favorite tale with herself and Miss 
Dwight. How often they had read its dra- 
matic pages and reveled in its musical lan- 
guage, no part of it more musical and dra- 
matic than the yeomen’s contest at archery! 

She could shut her eyes and see it all — the 
shady lane all grass-grown under its arch of 
trees, the target at one end and the archers at 
the other, while lining the passage on either 
side stood the yeomen watching the shots. 
With them, watching breathlessly. Hale al- 
ways saw a little girl, herself, standing well 
to the front and close up to the target, oh, 
perilously close, to see how fell the arrows. 

So here she was again to-day ! Hubert had 
shot so carefully, and his arrow had alighted 
within the inner ring but not exactly in the 
center. Then Locksley, the picturesque out- 
law in his Lincoln green, had shot so care- 
lessly and yet so much better than the fores- 
ter; which made Prince John urge greater 
care. 

Just here it was that Hale, all eager to see 


A SENSATION 


87 


the next shot go by, heard her name called, 
and found herself not in the green lane at the 
lists, but in the class-room at the Hawthorne 
school and called upon for the first time in her 
life to read before the class. 

She sprang eagerly to her feet and, glanc- 
ing at her book about as carelessly as Locks- 
ley had glanced at his target, she read 
straight at Miss Marsh. 

‘Hubert had but one set speech for all 
occasions.’ ” 

Another glance at the book. 

“ ‘An your highness were to hang me,’ he 
said, ‘a man can but do his best.’ ” 

Another glance. 

“ ‘Nevertheless, my grandsire drew a good 
bow’ — 

So bright and earnest was the tone as Hale 
began her reading that Miss Marsh involun- 
tarily looked up and, finding Hale’s eyes fixed 
upon her and the book a secondary atfair, she 
continued to look and listen, and so lost her 
place and let the end of the paragraph slip by 
without realizing it. 


88 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

Unhindered then, Hale launched into 
Prince John’s impatient rejoinder and read it 
through. . 

‘The foul fiend on thy grandsire and all 
his generation,’ interrupted John; ‘shoot, 
knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the 
worse for thee!’ ” 

Hale was not a bit surprised to see the 
change that came over Miss Marsh during the 
reading of this sentence. She was rather 
glad that chance had hit upon that stirring bit 
for her first reading. As she came out strong 
on “The foul fiend on thy grandsire,” she 
could see Miss Marsh go white low down upon 
her cheeks, while a startled look dawned in 
her eyes and deepened through the command 
and the threat. It was as if Hale had ad- 
dressed the words to her teacher, had called 
her a knave and bade her do her best under 
penalty of dire punishment. 

Seeing the effect of her effort. Hale felt she 
had done credit to Miss Dwight’s instruction, 
which had been, “Make it real.” Her satis- 
faction was short-lived, however. The glow 
of pleasure which warmed her cheeks as she 





Shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worst for thee ! ’ ” — Fage 88. 





A SENSATION 89 

sat down in obedience to Miss Marsh’s lifted 
hand burned hotly into a fire of confused 
shame under an avalanche of laughter that 
seemed to pour down upon her from the walls 
and ceiling, and surge up over her from the 
floor and desks. 

The entire class, regardless of Miss 
Marsh’s warning finger and as much by rea- 
son of her startled face as from any other 
cause, had burst into loud derisive laughter. 
Finding the lifted finger of no avail. Miss 
Marsh next applied her hand to her desk bell. 
Three times she struck it before there came 
any remission, and even then it came in an- 
swer to a new presence in the room. 

The door had opened and closed very 
quietly to admit Mr. Stickney, who, passing 
through the hall and hearing the unwonted 
sound, had said to himself, ‘‘What ! laughter? 
In the ninth-grade room? I’ll just step in 
and see who is sufficiently alive to make Miss 
Marsh’s room laugh.” 

Meantime, Hale had been sitting in puzzled 
misery, looking first at Miss Marsh and then 
at the children nearest her, then down at her 


90 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

book to see if she had perhaps made some lud- 
icrous mistake in calling a word. She read 
the sentences over to herself and could find no 
error. When the fact began to dawn upon 
her, as it did presently, that they were laugh- 
ing at her way of reading, she was disgusted 
with every one of them. Was it — 

But the room had suddenly hushed and Mr. 
Stickney was speaking. 

^^Ho tell me the joke. I haven .^t laughed 
like that for a week and I think it would do me 
good.’* 

Miss Marsh, very much flushed from re- 
pressed anger and acute embarrassment, be- 
gan to apologize. 

‘Ht was not a laughing matter at all. 
Eeally the class should be ashamed.” 

Mr. Stickney turned to the class. 

“I’m sure it must have been a good joke; 
who’ll tell?” 

Instantly Hale was on her feet, glowing 
with indignation. 

“I’ll tell, Mr. Stickney,” she said hurriedly. 
“They were laughing at the- way I read.” 

“Was it a funny way?” 


A SENSATION 


91 


‘‘It was the best I know how to do, — and 
a great deal better than any one here ever 
tries to do,^’ she added hotly. 

Mr. Stickney put his hand to his chin and 
rubbed his thumb along his jaw in a medita- 
tive way. 

“Will you read it for me like thatr^ he 
asked kindly* 

“111 read it for you, but not before this 
class, she told him after a moment ^s hesita- 
tion. 

“Come with me to the office, then.’^ 

Hale picked up her book and darted down 
the aisle and out the door which Mr. Stickney 
held open for her to pass, leaving Miss Marsh 
to settle the class and her own ruffied plumage 
as well as she could. She did not return to 
the ninth-grade room that afternoon in time 
to see Miss Marsh again. She suspected that 
Mr. Stickney was responsible for this fact, 
and so he was. 

Out in the hallway when they had escaped 
from the unfriendly atmosphere, he laid a 
gentle hand on her shoulder and said, “I^m 
on my way to Miss Blair ^s room just now; 


92 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

you run up to the office and wait for me 
there. 

It was nearly closing time before he came. 
Then she read to him in her very best style 
the whole of the ‘Hvanhoe’’ selection and 
several others, to all of which he listened 
very gravely. 

^^Who taught you to read like thatU’ he 
asked her. 

‘‘My mother always read to me like that 
before I knew my letters ; and my governess 
always wanted me to make the story real. 
She never let me read along just calling the 
words, as they do — as some people do.’’ 

“You are a credit to your mother. Hale, 
and to your governess, as well. That is real 
reading and very refreshing to hear. Now 
the problem is this, — public-school children 
get to be very much like sheep ; they go blun- 
dering along in flocks, following somebody’s 
lead. If anything uncommon happens, they 
are shocked and bewildered. Being savage 
little humans, they laugh whether it is going 
to hurt some one’s feelings or not.” 

“They’ll never laugh at my reading 


A SENSATION 


93 


again,’’ declared Hale, indignation darken- 
ing her eyes, ^Hor I’ll read like a ninny-cat, 
same as they do, and see if that suits them.” 

Mr. Stickney smiled at her vehemence, 
even as he shook his head. 

am sorry to hear you say that,” he told 
her; ^Hor I was just going on to say that I 
hoped you would be brave enough to keep 
right on reading the best that you know, be- 
cause it’s what I’d like to hear in every room 
in this building and from every child.” 

Hale bit her lip and looked distressed, 
know it will be hard at first,” Mr. Stick- 
ney continued, seeing that she needed time 
to think, ‘^but if it inspired some other child 
to try harder, you would be glad. I know 
you don’t enjoy hearing the stupid repeti- 
tion of words that goes by the name of read- 
ing.” 

^^No, I don’t,” said Hale. 

‘‘Then, too, don’t you owe it to yourself to 
do the best you can? Don’t you owe it to 
your mother and your governess to fulfill 
their expectations of you? I think the brave 
way, the only way that will really satisfy you. 


94 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

will be to do your best in spite of obstacles. ’ ^ 

Hale sighed. 

‘H suppose so,’’ she faltered, ‘‘but it made 
me fighting mad to hear them laugh. I don’t 
want to try it again, but I suppose I will be- 
cause Mother would be ashamed to hear me 
read the way they do. ’ ’ 

“Good!” said Mr. Stickney. “Do you 
know. Hale, I believe they won’t laugh again. 
They will know what to expect, so it won’t 
startle them next time. First thing we know, 
you will be the leader and all the little blun- 
dering human sheep will be following after 
you. ’ ’ 

Hale smiled faintly, a crooked little smile. 
Then the sunshine broke through this slight 
rift and she was herself again. 

“It’s just as well I decided that way,” she 
said, eagerly; “I know I could never stand it 
to whine along the way they do. I have to 
play the part of the one I’m reading about 
and put myself in his place, and do and say 
what he does in the way he does and says 
it.” 

Carried away by her own eloquence. Hale 


A SENSATION 


95 


glowed with the enthusiasm she had flung 
about her reading, and her very atmosphere 
sent a thrill along Mr. Stickney’s nerves. 

‘‘I see you do, Hale. You would be un- 
happy trying to do it half-way. Run now 
and put your book away, and promise me you 
won’t be unforgiving toward those thought- 
less classmates of yours.” 

Hale promised readily enough. Mr. 
Stickney had put their rudeness in such a 
light that she found no bitterness in it now. 

When she had put her book away in the 
empty class-room. Hale found Roy waiting 
for her on the steps. 

“I thought you’d never come!” he said. 
‘^What d’e say?” 

“He said it was all right and nothing to 
laugh about, and they only laughed because 
they were surprised and didn’t know what 
else to do. I suppose you know all that. 
You laughed with the rest.” 

This was true, but Roy had been hoping 
Hale didn’t know it. He had a boy’s nat- 
ural aversion to seeing a member of his fam- 


96 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

ily made conspicuous. When Hale had 
drawn all eyes upon herself, he had blushed 
uncomfortably, and pretended not to hear 
when ‘^Race’^ Wade swooped close to his 
ear with the whispered epithet, ‘^Some pip- 
pin.” When the storm of laughter broke 
around him, he had joined it for the very 
reason Mr. Stickney had given, — ^because he 
didn’t know what else to do. At the time it 
seemed to cover his chagrin and clear him 
from any connection with Hale’s perform- 
ance. 

‘^Yes, I did, but I’m ashamed of it now,” 
he confessed frankly. ‘‘Really it was great, 
Hale, and I wish I could do it that way. 
Everybody’s sorry they laughed at you.” 

‘ ‘ How do you know ? ’ ’ 

“Because I heard them talking after 
school. They think you are a brick to an- 
swer up the way you did. We all wish we 
could do as well.” 

“You could if you’d only try,” said Hale, 
as they parted at the corner. “You’re all 
asleep, the whole lot of you. It was nice of 
you to wait for me, Roy, and tell me what 


A SENSATION 97 

they said. It makes me feel a lot better; 
and I thank you» ’ ^ 

‘‘ ’At^s all right/’ shrugged Eoy. 
wanted you to know.” 


CHAPTER IX 


A EEPKIMAND 

T he story of Hale’s sensational reci- 
tation was not long in reaching the 
ears of the whole school enrollment, 
because every one was anxious to hear the 
cause of the uproar and every one who knew 
was eager to tell. The tale reached older 
ears as well. 

Miss Merrill, after a round of calls, 
dropped into the library about five o’clock 
and heard the news from the librarian. 

hear you have a lively little lady in your 
family this fall,” said Miss Colburn, as she 
made out charge slips for Miss Merrill’s 
books. 

‘‘What do you mean, Anna?” 

“The children have been telling me that 
Hale — ^is that her name ? — created quite a sen- 
sation in school this afternoon. You hadn’t 
heard?” said Anna Colburn, hesitatingly. 
“No. Dear me! what did she do?” 


98 


A EEPEIMAND 


99 


‘‘You don’t need to be alarmed, Miss Mer- 
rill ; it was nothing bad ; something very good, 
I should imagine, only it was unusual and 
unexpected. It was a reading-lesson, I was 
told, and Hale read as if she meant business, 
— like a young actress, according to the chil- 
dren’s tell.” 

Miss Merrill winced, and then frowned, 
while Anna continued. 

“It does me good to hear of some one stir- 
ring a bit of life into that ninth-grade class. 
I mulled through a year with Miss Marsh, 
and I know it wouldn’t take much to cause a 
sensation; though I suppose it’s heresy to 
say so. You went to school to her yourself, 
didn’t you. Miss Merrill?” 

Anna looked up from the slips she was 
sorting, blankly aware that she had dis- 
pleased Miss Merrill. 

“Oh, I beg — ” she began; but Miss Mer- 
rill was ready to speak. 

“Yes, I did go to school to Miss Marsh, 
and I found her an excellent teacher. I can 
still remember the rules and history dates 
she taught me, and I find the knowledge most 


100 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

useful. It seems that the young people to- 
day feel called upon to instruct their elders 
and superiors. I think it’s rather presump- 
tuous, to say the least.” 

Anna Colburn could do no more than watch 
Miss Merrill gather up her books and take 
her departure in stiff-backed haste. She 
could but sit and wonder what she had said 
to vex Miss Merrill, or whether it was Hale’s 
little escapade that had so stirred her anger. 
At last she decided it was because she had 
criticized Miss Merrill’s friend Miss Marsh. 
History dates indeed! Anna locked up the 
library for the night and went thoughtfully 
home, promising herself that she would in 
future refrain from criticizing her elders and 
superiors, but very far from guessing just 
where in her remarks lay the barb that ran- 
kled in Miss Merrill’s heart. 

Aunt Alice made it a point never to intro- 
duce unpleasant topics of conversation at the 
table, so she waited till Grandmother and 
Hale had taken up their knitting by the fire 
before she broached the subject of Hale’s 
misdemeanor. 


A EEPEIMAND 


101 


Meantime, it had not escaped Grandmoth- 
er's trained attention that her daughter was 
troubled about something. An occasional 
tightening of her lips coupled with the 
anxious glances furtively directed toward 
her niece told as plainly as words that her 
annoyance concerned Hale. 

Hale was quieter than usual. She had 
fallen into a way of bringing Grandmother 
scraps of information of the day^s events, 
telling them in a droll imitative way that was 
the cream of the story ; for the events in them- 
selves were simple and commonplace enough. 

This evening the conversation lagged. 
Now that it was all over and she knew how 
Eoy and the others thought of it, she would 
love to tell it to Grandmother and see her 
laugh over Miss Marsh’s dazed regard grow- 
ing into horrified amazement. Hale knew she 
could show Grandmother exactly how Miss 
Marsh had looked, and yet she hesitated. 
Somehow her talk with Mr. Stickney had 
made it seem too important to tell as a joke, 
and there was no special reason, in Hale’s 
opinion, for telling it in any other aspect. 


102 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

Her unwonted silence together with Aunt 
Alice’s evident state of mind partially pre- 
pared Grandmother for the dialogue which 
took place between the two when Aunt Alice 
was ready to speak. 

What is this, Hale, that I hear about your 
making a disturbance in school this after- 
noon?’^ 

made no disturbance, Aunt Alice. It 
was the rest of the class that made the noise. ’ ’ 

‘‘But you did something out of the ordi- 
nary ; something that is the talk of the town 
already. What was it?” 

“Hear me I” said Hale, with a show of im- 
patience, “I simply read a paragraph or two 
in the regular lesson. ” 

“Don’t be impatient. Hale. I want to 
know about this. Tell me what there was 
about it that should raise such a hue and 
cry,” commanded Aunt Alice in her firm, 
cold way. 

So Hale related the incident, and because 
it was impossible for her to launch into a 
story without being dramatic, she had her 
chance, after all, to make Grandmother smile 


A EEPRIMAND 103 

over Miss Marshes horrified countenance. 

Aunt Alice’s face was not a whit less ex- 
pressive of displeasure than. her teacher’s 
had been. 

‘‘Hale, what makes you do such things?” 
she implored. “It isn’t necessary nor nice 
for you to set yourself up in such a way. ’ ’ 

“I didn’t set myself up, Aunt Alice.” 

“ D on ’t contradict I You know it isn ’t cus- 
tomary for children in school to read as if 
they were elocutionists.” 

“I don’t know what an elocutionist is, 
Aunt Alice; but I know Mother and Miss 
Dwight always expected me to make the story 
sound real. That’s all I was trying to do, 
and I can’t help it if Miss Marsh and her 
old class are so stupid and dull they just pro- 
nounce words and call that reading!” 

“Hale!” 

“Excuse me, Aunt Alice. 

“You must be more respectful to Miss 
Marsh, or I can’t excuse you. I want you 
to go to her to-morrow morning and ask her 
pardon and tell her you are sorry for your 
performance. ’ ’ 


104 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

Hale gasped. 

‘‘But, Aunt Alice,” she protested, “I have 
done nothing to be sorry for. If there is any 
pardon asked, the class ought to ask mine. 
It was exceedingly rude of them to laugh as 
they did, especially as I’m a stranger.” 

“Don’t presume on the fact that you are 
a stranger to shield you when you misbe- 
have. You must tell Miss Marsh you are 
sorry for what you did and that hereafter 
you will make your actions conform to her 
wishes. ’ ’ 

“I can’t promise that, if her wishes are 
that I read the way the others do, because I 
have already promised Mr. Stickney that 
whenever I read I shall do my best. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ What do you mean f Mr. Stickney ? Has 
this come to his ears?” 

Hale, believing that the little compact in 
the office was not to be lightly told to a third 
person, had suppressed that part of the story. 
It must be told now, she could see. She shud- 
dered inwardly, in the certainty that Aunt 
Alice would not see the matter sympathetic- 


A EEPRIMAND 105 

ally, as Mr. Stickney did, and shuddering, 
plunged into the story. 

Aunt Alice, when she had heard her 
through, drew a deep breath and a long face 
and said she was surprised that Mr. Stickney 
should uphold her in such conduct. 

he sanctions such actions, 1 suppose my 
desires will have no weight with you. Per- 
haps I shouldn’t expect them to, considering 
who your mother was. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ My mother ! ’ ’ cried Hale, starting up with 
eyes ablaze. ‘ ‘ What about my mother ! ’ ’ 
Alice,” said Grandmother, in surprise; 
^‘aren’t you a little unwise?” 

Miss Merrill sat looking defiantly from her 
mother to her niece. For a moment she 
seemed about to speak; but checked the im- 
pulse, pressed her lips tightly, rose abruptly 
and left the room. 

Hale wheeled toward the fireplace and, 
dropping to the floor, buried her face in her 
Grandmother’s lap. 

‘VWhat does she mean? What does she 
mean?” she asked between her sobs. 


106 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

Grandmother stroked Haleys dark abun- 
dant hair and clasped her clammy little 
hands till there was quietness once more. 

good cry will do you no harm, dearie,’’ 
she said. ‘‘You have been too much excited 
to-day. The little shower will clear the air.” 

“What did she mean about my mother?” 
repeated Hale, with a searching look into 
Grandmother’s kind eyes. 

Grandmother returned the look in all hon- 
esty and earnestness. 

“Nothing which needs to trouble you the 
least little bit,” she answered. “Something 
of which you may be very glad some day.” 

Hale thought about this a moment and it 
seemed to connect with something over which 
she had puzzled not a little of late. 

“When Father and Aunt Alice quarreled, 
was it because of my mother?” 

“Yes, dearie,” nodded Grandmother, “it 
was because of your mother, but that need 
not trouble you either. Other people ’s quar- 
rels are hard to understand. You know 
your mother better than Aunt Alice did, and 


A EEPRIMAND 107 

you will believe me when I say that you have 
every reason to be proud of her. ^ ’ 

“Thank you, Grandmother,^’ said Hale, 
kissing her fervently. “I am proud of her. 
I almost worship her, and I don’t care what 
Aunt Alice thinks, I know she was — a queen.” 


CHAPTER X 


THE DRAMATIC CLUB 

I F Hale had any doubts of the feelings of 
her class toward her, they were dis- 
pelled next morning when she entered 
the school grounds. Martha Holmes, Clara 
Grant, Marion Shedd, and several others 
were waiting for her. Marion was their 
spokesman. 

‘‘Hale, you’re a brick!” she began. “Did 
you ever see such mean things as we were 
to laugh like that?” 

“That’s all right,” faltered Hale, sur- 
prised and pleased. “I don’t mind a bit 
now, but I was pretty mad at the time.” 

“You had a right to be,” declared Ma- 
rion. “It was partly Miss Marsh and her 
funny, shocked face that made us laugh.” 
“She was rather surprised,” agreed Hale. 
The girls closed in about her. 

“We want you to do something for us,” 
said Edith Hatch, taking Hale’s hand and 
108 


THE DEAMATIC CLUB 


109 


smoothing it coaxingly between her own. 
‘^We want you to teach us to read like that, 
so we can do it and show Miss Marsh we like 
your way. Will you U’ 

course not,^^ laughed Hale. 
couldnT teach anybody anything. All you 
have to do is make believe you’re the person 
talking, and say it the way he ’d say it. ’ ’ 

The girls looked at her hopelessly. 

‘‘You think we can because you can,” said 
Edith. “You don’t know how stupid we 
are.” 

“You’re not stupid,” protested Hale, “and 
if you keep thinking ‘Make it real,’ you’ll 
soon get it. It ’s’ just the same thing as dram- 
atizing the stories.” 

The girls shook their heads. Dramatize? 
What was that? 

“Make plays out of the stories and act 
them. It would be fun with such a lot of 
you. When Miss Dwight and I did it we 
had to take two or three parts apiece be- 
cause we were only two; but you could have 
any number of people and no trouble at all. ’ ’ 

“How do we begin?” asked Clara. 


110 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

‘‘Pick out a story that has lots of talking 
in it and each girl be somebody in the story. 
I’ll tell you at recess,” finished Hale ab- 
ruptly, as the gong began to ring and they all 
started on the run. 

When Hale had a bright idea it always 
meant the beginning of a train of ideas that 
developed like microbes into a formidable 
size within an hour. Thus, while Miss 
Marsh was droning perfunctorily through the 
allotted number of Bible verses as an open- 
ing exercise. Hale had formed a Dramatic 
Club and prepared the girls for the produc- 
tion of a play, to be given in costume, — 
where? This obstacle detained her but an 
instant, till she thought of a certain little 
building on the hill back of Grandmother’s 
house. 

The “little house,” as the family called it, 
was the one in which Grandfather and Grand- 
mother had started housekeeping years ago, 
while their own house was being built. Hale 
had investigated it through the windows and 
found it was a storehouse for old tables and 
broken-backed chairs. She would ask Grand- 


THE DEAMATIC CLUB 111 

mother if the girls could give their play 
there. 

The play, she decided, should be made out 
of the ‘Hvanhoe^^ selection with more added 
from the novel itself. By the time lessons 
were well under way, she had decided upon 
the characters. Edith Hatch, the fair-haired, 
should be the Disinherited Knight; Marion 
Shedd should be Prince John, the usurper; 
that girl over there, Beatrice something, 
would do for Hubert the forester, she was so 
heavy and important ; Hale herself would be 
gay Locksley, nothing less; she couldn’t tell 
who else would be needed till she had looked 
up the story to find out what parts they would 
use. 

Kecess found them with their heads bent in 
a circle around Hale while she explained the 
Dramatic Club, already a reality in her mind. 
A chorus of approval accompanied her ex- 
planations. 

That’s grand. Hale.” 

‘‘Won’t that be lovely!” 

“How do you think of such lovely things 
to do!” 


112 HALE MEKEILL’S HONEY QUEST 

never had anything so exciting be- 
fore!’’ 

‘H’ll hunt up the story to-night and decide 
what we can use and give you all your parts 
as soon as I can think it out,” promised Hale. 

There was a general acquiescence to this 
course of action, which, however, was not 
quite unanimous. Beatrice Philips said ‘‘In- 
deed” in a sarcastic way that caught Hale’s 
attention. 

“Nobody has to belong to the club that 
doesn’t want to,” she said, flushing, and mis- 
understanding the import of the remark. 

“Indeed!” repeated Beatrice, with cutting 
emphasis; “if there is a Dramatic Club, I 
shall belong, of course; but there isn’t any 
club yet. It has to be formed, I should think. 
When it is formed, it will have to have offi- 
cers and it might happen that you won’t be 
the boss.” 

“Quit, Bee! Don’t be hateful,” begged 
Edith. 

“I’m not hateful, but she might as well 
know that she can’t run things if she does 
come from the city.” 


THE DRAMATIC CLUB 


113 


don’t want to run things,” began Hale, 
but the gong put an end to explanations and 
the girls flocked in. 

Hale was not very happy over the turn 
affairs had taken. Aunt Alice’s words came 
back to her, about ^‘setting herself up.” 
Could Beatrice think that about her ? Surely, 
the girls had begged her to teach them or she 
would never have offered. 

Into the clutter of questioning and puzzling 
which busied her thoughts, Marion Shedd 
dropped one of her characteristic pictures. 
It represented a ruffed-up rooster (marked 
B. P.) stretching out its neck menacingly 
toward a little robin (marked H. M.). The 
rooster, according to a bubble proceeding 
from its mouth, was saying, ‘‘Don’t you dare 
to speak around here. I’m the cock of this 
walk.” The robin, also in a bubble, was 
saying, “Excuse me, sir.” Underneath was 
the pertinent information, “But when it 
comes to flying, the robin can and the rooster 
can not,^^ 

Hale accepted what comfort she could from 
this bit of picture and awaited further ex- 


114 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

planations. These came to her at noon when 
Edith Hatch walked home with her. 

‘‘Bee’s mother has always tried to run 
things in this town and Bee is a pocket edi- 
tion. She thinks she is quite the thing in elo- 
cution, speaks pieces with gestures at church 
suppers, and so on ; but she is stiff and stupid 
at it. All is, we’ll have to let her take some 
part and manage to keep peace somehow. I 
suppose she was right about forming the 
club, but we won’t let her run it, never fear.” 

“I suppose there is no reason why she 
shouldn’t run it,” said Hale, “I’m sure I 
don’t want to.” 

“She’d ruin it,” declared Edith in alarm. 
“Nobody can bear her bossy ways and, if we 
are going to do anything interesting, we’ll 
simply have to keep her where she can ’t bust 
the whole thing up.” 

“All right; you see to it. I’m sure I don’t 
know how. When you live with your own 
family, the way I always have, you don’t 
know much about quarrels with other girls. ’ ’ 

“It’s nothing but jealousy,” said Edith. 


THE DRAMATIC CLUB 


115 


‘‘She’ll behave herself, or we’ll put her out.” 

Beatrice, meanwhile, was having a heated 
argument with Marion Shedd. 

“Whatever you do, don’t he mean. Bee! 
Hale didn’t put herself into this thing. We 
asked her to do it.” 

“She thinks she’s so smart it makes me 
hot, ’ ’ snapped Beatrice. ‘ ‘ Think of her get- 
ting up and reading the way she did yester- 
day. Just to show otf, I say.” 

“ Stutf, Bee ! You know if you could do as 
well, you would do it every day. I know I 
would. You might as well own up you’re 
jealous.” 

“I’m not jealous.” 

“Then what ails you?” 

“You’re not very polite,” parried Bea- 
trice, angrily. 

“Well, you weren’t very polite to Hale. 
If you join the Dramatic Club, you’ve got to 
be nice to her, or we’ll be ashamed of you.” 

“She’s got you wrapped around her little 
finger, the whole lot of you. Just because 
she’s new and showy.” 


116 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

There, Bee! cool off, or you’ll be saying 
something foolish. Come over to my house 
after school if you decide you want to join 
the club. It’s not compulsory, remember.” 

Marion turned in at her gate and left 
Beatrice to proceed alone. She knew to a 
certainty that Beatrice would never let a 
Dramatic Club come into action without her. 

This was true. Beatrice returned to the 
afternoon session in an outwardly gracious 
mood. Her mother had loaned her a copy 
of the Woman’s Club Constitution and By- 
Laws. This she showed to Edith Hatch and 
asked if it wouldn’t be a good idea to model 
their club after it. 

^‘Do you have to have all that highbrow 
stuff!” asked Edith. ‘Ht sounds rather 
stiff and heavy for youngsters like us.” 

‘Ht’s the only right way to form a club,” 
maintained Beatrice. 

‘‘We’ll see what the other girls say.” 

A minute later Marion drew Edith aside 
and said, “Mother thinks we ought to have 
an older person in the club, to keep us out of 
quarrels with Beatrice and her kind. What 


THE DRAMATIC CLUB 117 

do you say if we ask Miss Blair to come this 
afternoon and start us right?’’ 

The plan met Edith’s approval and the 
two girls rushed in to lay it before their 
former teacher, who assured them that she 
was highly flattered to be asked and, if they 
didn’t expect to work her too hard, she would 
be glad to be an honorary member of the 
club. 

It was well Miss Blair was with them, they 
decided; for her judgment and tact were 
needed. When she had steered them safely 
through the formalities of organizing the 
club and electing four officers, the question 
of a constitution arose, and with it Beatrice 
Philips. 

‘‘Madam President,” she began with 
vigor, “I have written out a constitution 
which I think will be a good one for our club. 
I will read it.” 

This she proceeded to do, amid the puzzled 
looks of the girls, who after a season of polite 
attention cast down their eyes and gave up 
the struggle. 

Beatrice ’s elaborate effort ran as follows : 


118 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

CONSTITUTION OF THE DRAMATIC 
CLUB. 

ARTICLE I. 

Name. 

This club shall be designated the Girls’ 
Dramatic Club of Hawthorne. 

ARTICLE II. 

Object. 

The object of the Club shall be to inocu- 
late in its members the principles of the his- 
trionic art of acting plays. 

ARTICLE III. 

Mbmbebship. 

'Sec. 1. The membership shall consist of 
not more than fifteen girls who have manifest 
histrionic genius. 

Sec. 2. New Members shall be admitted 
after their names have been proposed by two 
members in good standing and regularly 
voted upon in a regular meeting of the club. 

Sec. 3. Any member who absents herself 
from the meetings or proves to be untalented 


THE DRAMATIC CLUB 


119 


in powers of dramatic interpretation shall be 
dropped by vote of those present at any meet- 
ing. 

Sec. 4. The dues shall be fifty cents an- 
nually, payable in advance, to be expended 
on a party at some convenient day to be set 
after due discussion in club meeting and made 
to fit the convenience of the majority of mem- 
bers. 

ARTICLE IV. 

Meetings. 

The Club shall meet regularly every Thurs- 
day afternoon at the close of school, all school 
vacations out. 

ARTICLE V. 

Officers. 

Sec. 1. The officers shall be a President, 
Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer, 
their duties being such as are customary for 
such officers. 

Sec. 2. These officers shall be elected by 
ballot at the annual meeting. 


120 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

ARTICLE VI. 

Committees. 

The committees shall be 

1st. Play Committee to select the plays 
and assign the parts; 

2nd. Party Committee to supervise the ex- 
penditures of the club dues, as aforemen- 
tioned. 

ARTICLE VII. 

Order of Business. 

The order of business at the regular meet- 
ings shall be one half hour practicing the 
play and one half hour devoted to refresh- 
ments to be furnished by the girl whose house 
we meet at. 

It was really good of Miss Blair not to 
laugh at this effort of Bee ’s. She had many 
times, in the year Beatrice was her pupil, 
found more sound than sense in her written 
work. 

‘‘Suppose we take it up article by article 
and vote upon it,^’ was her suggestion when 


THE DRAMATIC CLUB 121 

President Edith had asked in a helpless way 
what they should do with it. 

When the voting was over and the consti- 
tution complete, it read as follows: 

ARTICLE I. 

Name. 

The Club shall be called the Dramatic Club 
of Hawthorne. 

(^^Boys can belong if they want to. We 
might need them,’’ Clara Grant had sug- 
gested.) 


ARTICLE II. 

Object. 

The object of the Club shall be to have 
good times acting little plays. 


ARTICLE III. 

Membership. 

Any boy or girl who enjoys acting plays 
may join by vote of the members. There 
shall be no dues. 


122 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 
ARTICLE IV. 


Meetings. 

The Club shall meet on Thursdays after 
school. 

ARTICLE V. 

Officees. 

The oflScers shall be President, Vice Presi- 
dent, and Secretary, besides Custodian for 
stage properties, elected by ballot at the first 
meeting in September. 

Beatrice thought the new form entirely too 
brief and simple to be called a constitution, 
but had to submit to majority rule. 

Miss Blair then asked Hale to explain a 
little of what she had in mind for the ‘Hvan- 
hoe” dramatization, and when she had done 
so. Miss Blair suggested that it would be more 
club-like and more interesting if she asked 
some of the others to help her work out the 
scenes. 

When the meeting was about to adjourn. 
Miss Blair offered another suggestion. 
Truly, the honorary member was a great ad- 
dition to the club. 


THE DRAMATIC CLUB 


123 


‘‘How many of you have been to the house 
called ‘Fruitlands’ where Louisa May Al- 
cott lived when she was a little girl?^’ she 
asked. 

Clara Grant had been, hut none of the 
others. 

“This Dramatic Club made me think of 
Miss Alcott, who, you remember, was fond 
of acting plays with her sisters. I won- 
dered if we wouldnT aU enjoy a trip to 
‘Fruitlands’ Saturday afternoon to see the 
house.’’ 

The girls thought it would be grand. 

“Then let’s go,” said Miss Blair. “It 
will cost us each thirty cents, for carfare and 
admission, for the house is now a museum.” 

After a few minutes spent in making ar- 
rangements, the President of the new Dra- 
matic Club declared the meeting adjourned. 


CHAPTER XI 


Fkuitlands 

H ale looked forward with pleasure 
to the ‘‘Fruitlands’’ trip because 
she knew and loved Miss Alcott’s 
books, and aspired to follow in her footsteps 
some day. 

No one had prepared her for the location 
of the farmhouse ; in fact, no one had told her 
that it was a farmhouse. She had given that 
detail very little thought, but vaguely sup- 
posed it to be a village house in a village 
street. 

‘‘Look, Hale,’^ cried Marion, pointing off 
to the left. 

They had climbed a long hill from the 
depot, turning to the left and following the 
main street of the quiet little village till it 
led up a steep rise and wound along the side 
of another hill. 

Hale looked and gasped. 

124 


FEUITLANDS 


125 


Immediately before them was a beautiful 
white house built in Italian villa style and 
perched on the side of the hill, below the 
road, so that they looked down upon its red 
roof, its pillared verandas, and its formal 
Italian garden. 

Beyond the house, the hill swept down 
across velvety green pastures to the railroad, 
and beyond that to meadows and a silvery 
thread of river. Mounting on the other side 
through fields and woods, the country rose 
into hill after hill, a wall of green, dotted 
with occasional farmhouses. 

Never had Hale gazed upon such a pros- 
pect. The view from her bedroom window 
which made her feel lonesome and empty was 
a mere handful to this. She looked and 
looked. It almost seemed that the great wide 
valley must be all the kingdoms of the world 
and that she and this little group were all 
the people in them. She felt a compelling 
desire to sink right down where she stood and 
hold on to something stable to keep from get- 
ting lost in that far-flung valley. 

The others had seen the view before, but 


126 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

they were all silently absorbed in it for many 
minutes. Presently Marion roused her 
friend with a gentle protest. 

‘‘Would you just as soon not grab quite so 
hard, Hale? It begins to hurt a little.’’ 

Hale recovered her presence of mind and 
found she had been holding Marion by the 
arm with a grip that made her own fingers 
ache. 

“How dreadful!” she said. “Do please 
forgive me, Marion.” 

“This outlook sort of scared you,” sug- 
gested Marion. 

“It is so big it makes me feel all hollow 
and — holy. ’ ’ 

“I know,” agreed Marion, with a sym- 
pathetic pressure of her hand. “I feel that 
way, too. This is the real world, all big and 
beautiful and broad. It always makes me 
feel that I’d be ashamed to do anything petty 
or ugly or mean as long as I live. It is better 
than a sermon.” 

Hale thought it was. They lingered and 
looked and talked of the points of interest. 
Miss Blair could name all the high peaks and 


FRUITLANDS 


127 


could tell the names of the people who lived 
in the houses far and near. Hale, listening 
to her stories of this and that family and 
their traditions, wondered how people in the 
country ever came to know about one an- 
other, living so far apart. 

It made her feel homesick and strange and 
helpless ; and she was glad when Edith re- 
minded them of the object of their trip. 

There is where we are going’ ^ she said, 
pointing to a little red house on the slope 
below the villa, not quite down to the rail- 
road. 

Fruitlands was a typical farmhouse of the 
eighteenth century, with a big kitchen which 
occupied the entire length of the house across 
the back. Into this the young people entered 
by a side door. The front of the house was 
divided into two rooms and a tiny front 
entry, and it was to these that the guide 
directed them and began her story of the 
Fruitlands experiment. 

The first room was a dining-room, not used 
much in the days when Miss Alcott had lived 
there as a child, because the family ate gen- 


128 HALE MEERILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

erally at a long table in the far end of the 
kitchen. The dining-room was used for spe- 
cial guests, however, when Emerson and 
other friends came to visit the Con-Sociate 
Family. 

Hale was not very well acquainted with 
the Fruitlands history, though Miss Blair 
had tried to tell them a little about the hope 
Bronson Alcott had entertained that he could 
establish a colony in which plain living and 
high thinking’’ should be the rule. 

She now learned from the guide that he 
had gathered a small group of sympathetic 
friends and established what he called the 
Con-Sociate Family at this little farmhouse. 
Here they had attempted to live from a com- 
mon fund, without help of animals either as 
food or as beasts of burden. The farm work 
was to be done entirely by hand, and the 
vegetable products of the soil were to con- 
stitute their ‘‘pure sustenance.” 

Mrs. Alcott, with her four little girls to 
clothe and care for, was expected to trans- 
form the raw materials from their native 
state into such dishes as would appeal to the 


FRUITLANDS 129 

appetites of the men of the group, made 
sharp by outdoor labor. 

The young people found it a pathetic tale. 
How could men of such soft hands and quiet 
habits expect to wring a living from the soil 
without animals to work for them and with- 
out any former training in agriculture ! Was 
it any wonder that the first snows of winter 
found the colony reduced to Mr. and Mrs. 
Alcott and the little girls'? Those who were 
merely followers of the great idea had 
slipped away to livings more secure and com- 
fortable, leaving Mr. Alcott a sad and disap- 
pointed leader without a following. 

The young people passed from room to 
room as the story progressed. In the little 
entry they saw the built-in bookcases con- 
taining the small library, mostly books on 
philosophy, on which the dreamers browsed. 
In the bedroom beyond was the family Bible, 
the bust of Socrates, and the bed on which 
the broken-hearted Alcott attempted to die 
of grief when he realized that his great plan 
was not practical. 

The kitchen was an interesting room, with 


130 HALE MEEKILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

a long table flanked by benches where the 
meals were served after they had been 
cooked at the wide fireplace. 

‘‘No butter for their bread!’’ exclaimed 
Clara .Grant, echoing the words of the guide, 
‘ ‘ and no milk to crumble it into ! Girls I did 
you ever hear the like of that ! ’ ’ 

“Those are animal foods,” the guide re- 
minded them. “Eggs were also prohibited, 
and fats of all kinds except olive or other 
vegetable oils.” 

“Think of it!” reiterated Clara. “I don’t 
see how poor Mrs. Alcott cooked without 
those things.” 

The guide went on to explain that Mrs. 
Alcott was not in sympathy with the experi- 
ment, but had such love and respect for her 
husband that she was willing to work at great 
disadvantage that he might test his theories. 

The thought was constantly in Hale’s mind 
that Mrs. Alcott must have been at a loss to 
find the honey in her lot. 

The up-stairs rooms were quaint and in- 
teresting, the garret most of all. Here the 
girls could stand erect only in the very center 


FRUITLANDS 


131 


under the ridgepole, but the guide assured 
them that the little Alcott girls had slept 
there and enjoyed it, too, especially on rainy 
nights when the music on the roof lulled them 
to sleep. 

It looked dreary enough now. Hale knew 
she would die of the blues to have to sleep 
in such a cavern. Yet she found a lesson in 
the little house, as did each of the others. 

‘‘If Louisa May Alcott could grow up to be 
such a wonderful writer with nothing better 
than this to start on, I’d be ashamed to give 
up till I’d tried with all my might,” she 
thought. 

“Mrs. Alcott must have been an angel in- 
carnate, to be patient with her husband’s 
queer ideas,” said Clara. 

“With all this outdoors to look at, I don’t 
wonder Mr. Alcott expected his food to rain 
down from heaven, ’ ’ breathed Edith, looking 
out the tiny window-panes across to the hills. 

“What puzzles me is the eats!” said 
Marion, shaking her head in despair. ‘ ‘Corn- 
meal mush with molasses wouldn’t suit me as 
a steady diet; but I suppose it might be more 


132 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

sensible than macaroons and ice-cream. It 
makes me feel terribly extravagant.’’ 

Hale was silent. She could not speak of 
the honey and the bee, for the girls would not 
understand; but she told Grandmother all 
about it by the fire that night and was 
strengthened in her resolution to find all the 
honey she could in her more comfortable lot. 

Miss Blair had brought with her a copy of 
Miss Alcott’s ‘‘Transcendental Wild Oats,” 
for she well knew that the girls would enjoy 
the whimsical interpretation of the experi- 
ment, and felt that this would be the best 
time to acquaint them with it, while the story 
and its impressions were fresh in their 
minds. 

As soon as they had seen all there was to 
see in the house, they sat down under the big 
mulberry-trees by the front door to hear the 
tale and laugh over the nonsensical twist 
the writer gave to ideas which the originators 
had taken so seriously. 

When it was time to close the book and go 
back to the depot to meet the train for Haw- 
thorne, they left the little house reluctantly. 


CHAPTER XII 


A BUSINESS TKANSACTION 

H ale was practicing one warm Sat- 
urday morning when the doorbell 
rang. She knew that Grandmother 
and Aunt Alice were motoring with Mrs. 
Porter, but supposed that Delia was at hand 
to answer the bell. When, however, she did 
not respond to the second peal. Hale went 
herself to answer it. 

‘ ‘ Good morning, my dear, ^ ’ began the lady 
on the porch. ‘‘Is Miss Merrill at homeT' 
“Not just now; she is out motoring with 
Mrs. Porter.^’ 

The strange lady smiled very sweetly and 
opened the screen-door, which Hale had un- 
locked. 

“Indeed, dearie! But, of course, you ^11 do 
just as well.’^ 

She was in the hall now, looking about with 
great interest. 


133 


134 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

Where can we sit down to talk! Oh, yes, 
the sitting-room, of course^’; and she fol- 
lowed Hale's fluttering little gesture toward 
that cool, darkened room. Hale followed the 
lady, trying to recall her name. 

‘‘We shall need a little more light here. 
There, one blind will do. Now, that's better. 
Isn't it warm! You'll excuse me if I lay off 
my hat and gloves. It will rest me so." 

“Oh, yes," murmured Hale, trying not to 
stare too hard at the many rings that came 
to light when the gloves were removed. 

“I will not ask her who she is," she was 
saying to herself, “for if I wait she will 
probably tell me." 

Meantime, the lady had settled herself com- 
fortably in the wicker rocker and, leaning her 
head back wearily, had closed her eyes. In 
her lap Hale now saw a small black flannel 
bag. 

Presently the tired lady opened her eyes 
and sat up with a jerk. 

“Why, bless me! I nearly fell asleep. It 
is so cool and restful here after the glare 
outside. ' ' 


A BUSINESS TEANSACTION 135 


Hale, still unable to think of any remark, 
nodded acquiescence. The lady spoke on. 

‘‘Let me see,” she said, as if trying to 
recollect a fact she had forgotten, “where 
are you in school now?” 

“In the ninth grade.” 

“Oh, sure enough! And do you study his- 
tory?” 

“Yes, United States history.” 

“Capital! Now I have here exactly what 
you need.” 

Out of the black bag the lady whipped a 
thin leather-covered book, and, shpping her 
chair quite close to Hale’s, she opened at the 
preface and began to read very fast a cer- 
tain underlined passage which Hale did not 
wholly succeed in understanding. 

“ ‘No home should be without its history 
library. Daily, almost hourly, some member 
of the family will wish to verify a half- 
remembered bit, it may be of Greek, of 
Eoman, of English, of Eussian, of Spanish, 
or of American history. To own separate 
histories of all these nations would require 
more money to purchase and more room to 


136 HALE MEKRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

store the books than the average family can 
spare. It has been the purpose of the editor 
of these volumes to present in compact form, 
yet in a vivid manner, the salient facts from 
the history of all nations; that the youth 
may take pleasure in the culture history can 
give him, that the mature man may frequently 
remind himself of the facts he learned in 
youth, and that both shall do so with the 
least possible loss of time and effort.’ ” 

The underlining ceased, and Hale breathed 
a sigh of relief. It was clear now that this 
was a book agent, and not a friend of her 
aunt’s. She must be listened to politely and 
dismissed firmly. Hale knew that her mother 
had never bought books in this way. 

Turning a few pages, the agent continued. 

‘‘This is the first volume, the history of 
the Hebrew people from the beginning of the 
world to the capture of Jerusalem by the 
Turks. Beautifully illustrated and abso- 
lutely authentic. Rabbi Bornstein told me 
the other day that he simply must have the 
set just for that volume, the illustrations 
were so good and the story itself so cap- 


A BUSINESS TRANSACTION 137 


tivating. Picture of the Children of Israel 
crossing the Dead Sea. Oh, yes, Red Sea; 
excuse me! Solomon building the temple — 
perfectly wonderful building.’’ 

The pictures were interesting. Hale 
wished she might be permitted to turn the 
pages herself, for the agent was skipping 
some. 

‘^This volume begins with the Greek leg- 
ends and myths ; you must have read some of 
them. Lovely picture of Pandora ; beautiful 
story, isn’t it, of Hope staying in the box; 
picture of Pallas Athene, the Goddess of the 
Chase.” 

‘^Oh, no! she was the Goddess of Wis- 
dom. ’ ’ 

‘^So she was! Well, I get things mixed 
sometimes. Now here is a volume on Roman 
history; all the Roman myths and recorded 
history; the wonderful conquests of the 
Caesars; the art treasures of Rome.” 

A persistent, penetrating odor had been 
drifting in at the window in whitfs and now 
it came more forcefully and fairly smote upon 
them. Hale sniffed vigorously once or twice ; 


138 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

then with a breathless, goodness me!^^ 
she fled to the kitchen. 

When she returned after a few minutes 
she found the book agent comfortably asleep 
in the rocker. She stood a moment irreso- 
lute in the doorway, wishing she knew how to 
dismiss her unwelcome guest. Undoubtedly 
she could do this better if the lady were 
awake. So Hale came within reach of the 
chair and gave it a sudden shake. 

‘ ^ Oh, yes, ’ ’ continued the agent, as if there 
had been no interruption, ‘‘all the art treas- 
ures of Rome. Picture of the Vatican. 
What was it that burned U’ 

“Something that Delia left on the stove. 
I canT think where she has gone,’’ puzzled 
Hale. 

“Too bad,” consoled the agent, indiffer- 
ently. “Now to resume, here is Germany, 
France, England,^ — what?” for Hale had 
made a swift gesture which the agent trans- 
lated to mean interest. 

“Is there anything about Joan of Arc?” 

“Indeed yes! pages and pages. Here’s a 
picture of her.” 


A BUSINESS TRANSACTION 139 


A quick turn of tke well-known leaves of 
the prospectus showed Hale the picture, and 
she suddenly found her tongue. 

‘‘That^s beautiful,’^ she said. ^‘I think 
Joan of Arc was so splendid. What a lovely 
picture!’’ 

‘‘Wouldn’t you like to have that picture 
where you can look at it whenever you wish ? ’ ’ 

“Yes,” admitted Hale. 

“Then why not have the set, complete in 
sixteen volumes, in cloth, half-morocco, or 
full-leather bind; payments in any way you 
like, full settlement at once or in easy in- 
stallments.” 

Hale found it very hard to understand the 
agent when she struck into her stock phrases. 

“Did you say how much they cost?” she 
ventured. 

“That depends on the bind, dear. Which 
bind do you like best?” She displayed them 
all on a folder. 

“This is the prettiest, I think.” 

“The full leather. Yes, my dear, I see you 
have the infallible taste of a lady. Now, that 
would be thirty-eight dollars ; not much, you 


140 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

see. You can pay by installment, if you 
like. ’ ^ 

‘‘Father will pay for them,’^ Hale assured 
her. 

“To be sure. Won^t he be delighted to, 
when he knows you are so much interested 
in your books. I have never seen a more in- 
telligent little girl. Yes, that’s a lovely pic- 
ture of Joan of Arc, just grand.” 

While she talked, the agent was hunting 
through the black flannel bag for a contract- 
blank, which she now laid on the table where 
pen and ink were ready. 

“You sign here,” indicated the agent, and 
Hale wrote with great care her round-hand 
signature. 

“The books will be sent at once arid you 
will receive from the company each month 
a bill for three dollars which is the usual 
way of paying; but if your father wants to 
pay all at once you have only to let them know 
it by remitting the whole amount and the 
transaction will be complete.” 

The phrases were getting stereotyped 
again, and Hale found it difficult to follow, 


A BUSINESS TRANSACTION 141 


especially as she was busy catching a last 
glimpse of the rings as they disappeared into 
the gloves. With wonderful speed for so 
weary a lady, the agent made her exit. Hale 
stood at the door and watched her down the 
drive. 

She had a strong desire to run after her 
and take it all back. It was borne in very 
strongly to her that some one should have 
been consulted before she promised to take 
the books. All that held her back was the 
signing of her name to that paper. She 
didn’t know what she had signed, for she had 
not read a word of it, but she was afraid to 
protest now, it might be illegal, it would 
surely be embarrassing. At any rate, the 
agent was gone, so she couldn’t now if she 
wanted to. 

Hale returned to her practising, through 
every note of which ran the fruitless wish 
that she had not signed for the books. Only 
too well she recalled that her father had often 
expressed his disapproval of book-agent 
methods. He might object to sending her 
thirty-eight dollars to pay for a set of books, 


142 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

especially as their library at home was well 
stocked. 0 dear ! why had she been trapped ! 

She remembered it was due to the picture 
of Joan of Arc. Her face relaxed its pucker 
as she wished that she might see again that 
picture of Joan of Arc. She loved the story 
of that inspired peasant maid. Even as she 
thought of her, she found herself sitting 
straighter at the piano and practising more 
vigorously. Yet she sagged whenever she 
remembered the thirty-eight dollars. She 
wondered if that would seem a lot of money 
to her father. 

Of Delia and the burned apple-sauce she 
did not think again till the motor-car came 
back to the door and Grandmother and Aunt 
Alice rang to be admitted. 

^‘Here^s the meat for dinner, Hale. Tell 
Delia to be sure to broil it through; it is 
thicker than usual.’’ 

Arrived at the kitchen and finding the 
apple-sauce standing in the sink where she 
had put it, and no Delia in sight. Hale was 
not long in spreading the news of her ab- 


sence. 


A BUSINESS TRANSACTION 143 


They hunted her in vain, up-stairs, down 
cellar, in the garden. No Delia was to be 
found. 

^‘lUs getting so late 111 have to get dinner 
myself,’’ said Aunt Alice, donning a big 
apron and looking critically at the small 
spark of fire that was left. “I never knew 
Delia to fail us before.” 

The preparations had not advanced very 
far when the truant returned. Very rosy 
and out of breath, she came panting in 
and took the paring-knife out of Hale’s 
hand. 

‘H’ll finish these,” she gasped, trying not 
to show how excited she was. 

Miss Merrill eyed her curiously, but said 
nothing as she removed the big apron and 
started to leave the room. 

went to see a sick friend. Miss Merrill,” 
Delia halted her to explain. ‘H’m sorry I 
was late about dinner.” 

‘‘Be as prompt as you can. You must 
have gone unexpectedly,” remarked Miss 
Merrill, pointing at the apple-sauce. 

“I did. I was sent for in a hurry and 


144 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

couldn’t wait. I was that stirred about, I 
forgot everything.” 

Miss Merrill murmured something about it 
being an unusual state of affairs and mo- 
tioned Hale to precede her. They left the 
kitchen and the belated dinner to a strangely 
flustered Delia. 

There was destined to be another fluttering 
heart under that roof before many minutes, 
for no sooner had they reached the sitting- 
room than Aunt Alice noticed that the cover 
was oif the ink-stand. 

‘‘What have you been doing with the ink, 
Hale?” 

“Oh, did I forget to cover it?” asked Hale, 
very red and uncomfortable. 

“What were you doing with it?” persisted 
Aunt Alice. 

“Just signing my name,” faltered Hale. 

“To what?” 

“To a — don’t know what.” 

“Don’t know I What do you mean?” 

“It was a paper. A book agent came to 
see you, ’ ’ finished Hale, miserably. 

‘ ‘ Then you signed for a book I ’ ’ 


A BUSINESS TEANSACTION 145 

‘^A set of history books. I’m sure Father 
will be willing I should have them. He will 
send me the money,” Hale spoke with some 
spirit now. She had intended to say nothing 
to Aunt Alice about the books, but quietly 
write to her father and ask for the money. 
Forced to tell her folly in this humiliating 
way, she could not do otherwise than defend 
herself and her act, however much she might 
in private doubt the wisdom of what she had 
done. 

‘ ‘ He will not be very likely to send you the 
money,” said Aunt Alice, coldly. ^^He has 
money troubles enough to think of, in all con- 
science, without that. I forbid you to write 
to your father of this matter. Hale. Do you 
understand? You must pay for the books 
yourself. ’ ’ 

Hale’s lips parted in protest, but Aunt 
Alice raised a detaining hand and continued : 

will advance the sum to you, and you 
can have plenty of time to repay it ; but you 
must pay it, every cent. It will teach you the 
value of money. How much will it be ? ” 

^^Thirty-eight dollars,” said Hale, a bright 


146 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

red spot glowing on each cheek and her eyes 
burning darkly. 

‘ ‘ That is a great piece of folly, Hale. How 
could you spend so much money without ask- 
ing some one’s advice?” 

don’t know,” said Hale, solemnly. ‘‘I 
think the woman hypnotized me.” 

‘‘That’s no excuse. I should hope a niece 
of mine would be proof against any such 
measures. Remember now; not a word to 
your father.” 

Hale promised and fled. It is one thing 
to know you have been foolish, but quite 
another to be told so by a self-righteous 
aunt. The first makes you sad, the second 
makes you mad. Why could she not ask her 
father for the money ! He would have mercy 
on her feelings ; and while he would think it 
was a piece of folly, he would go to great 
pains to make her think it wasn’t such a bad 
mistake for an inexperienced little girl to 
make. What did Aunt Alice mean by money 
troubles! At least she would write Father 
about that, without mentioning the books. 

The correspondence between Hale and her 


A BUSINESS TEANSACTION 147 


father had been of a strictly personal nature. 
He had said that he was well and thinking 
often of her ; he had entered sympathetically 
into her new experiences and told her how 
some of them were similar to his own boyhood 
activities; but of the object for which he had 
left her to the tender mercies of Aunt Alice 
and departed for such remote regions he had 
said nothing at all. The fact that it was busi- 
ness had satisfied her; but if it was money 
troubles she ought to know about it. She 
would ask him next time she wrote. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A KITCHEN EOMANCE 

‘‘Dear Father: 

“I have a very remarkable thing to tell 
you this time because we have had a romance 
in the kitchen. Listen and see if this wouldn’t 
make a good story plot. 

“Delia is the girl that works for Aunt 
Alice. She has worked here five years. Yes- 
terday morning Delia left the kitchen, apple- 
sauce on the stove and all, and went away 
suddenly. The apple-sauce burned and I 
smelled it while the hook agent was here. 
Afterward I forgot about it till Grandmother 
and Aunt Alice came home. Then we couldn ’t 
find Delia anywhere. Aunt Alice and I 
started getting dinner. ^ Soon Delia appeared 
very breathless and said she had been to see 
a sick friend. 

“It looked very strange at the time, but 
Aunt Alice didn’t question her. She thinks 
it is beneath the dignity of a lady to question 
the help, and all things come out sooner or 
later, anyway. 

“This came out very soon; for just before 
supper-time a man came into the yard and 
went to the back door. I was in the kitchen 
making some paste for a costume for Locks- 

148 


A KITCHEN ROMANCE 149 

ley the Outlaw in a play we have made out 
of ‘Ivanhoe’ for the Dramatic Club. I heard 
Delia tell the man to go away. She seemed 
very cross at him and he wouldn’t go away. 

‘‘By-and-by I heard him say, ‘Does Miss 
Merrill know you are married T Of course, 
I wasn’t trying to hear, but the paste was 
lumpy and I couldn’t take it into the sitting- 
room till I was through stirring it. When 
he said that, she said, ‘ Sh ! ’ and went outside 
with him into the yard. They talked a few 
minutes more and he went away. 

“I didn’t know whether it would be honor- 
able to tell Aunt Alice what I had heard, but 
I decided to wait and see if Delia’s con- 
science would permit her to keep the awful 
secret, especially as she must have known 
that I heard the man’s question. Of course, 
I was wondering very much who her husband 
was and where he could be all this time. 

“We were destined soon to find out. Soon 
after we were settled in the sitting-room for 
the evening, I heard a rap at the front door 
and Aunt Alice told me to open it because it 
was probably Forest. 

“When I opened the door there was the 
same man who had talked with Delia and 
asked her that accusing question. He asked 
to see Miss Merrill, so I opened the door for 
him to enter. Aunt Alice was not very glad 
to see him for he was not gentlemanly look- 
ing, but thin and untidy, and smelled of 
tobacco. 

“She didn’t offer him a chair, so he leaned 


150 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

against the door-frame and cmmpled his cap 
while he talked. The first thing he said was 
very dramatic. If I write this in a play, as 
I expect to some day, I shall use these very 
words: ‘My wife won’t take care of me.’ 

“Aunt Alice was dramatic, too. She 
straightened up where she was standing, not 
very near him because of the strong tobacco, 
and she said, ‘What is that to me?’ She 
was very angry I could see. Grandmother 
and I wondered what he could mean, also; 
though I had a faint suspicion now. The 
light was beginning to dawn. 

‘ ‘ The man almost cried ; he whined and put 
his head back against the door as he said, 
‘You could say she must, ma’am.’ 

“Then Aunt Alice asked, ‘WIio is your 
wife?’ 

“Of course, I was partly prepared for the 
answer, but the others were dumfounded to 
hear him say, ‘Delia is my wife.’ 

“With that he laid his head back against 
the door frame once more and gave a sort 
of big deep sigh, and slipped right down, 
down to the floor. 

“Aunt Alice never moved from where she 
stood. Grandmother started out of her chair 
to reach him, but Aunt Alice stopped her. 
She kept her eyes on the man and said, ‘Hale, 
call Delia.’ 

“I flew to the kitchen thinking how dra- 
matic it would be if I should swing open the 
door and say, ‘Delia, your husband lies dead 
in the sitting-room!’ When I got there I 


A KITCHEN EOMANCE 


151 


was trembling so I could not carry out the 
part. I simply said, ‘Delia, Aunt Alice wants 
you.’ 

“So in came Delia all unsuspecting and 
at first she didn’t see him, for he was lying 
just where the sofa and the table hid him 
from her. Aunt Alice looked tragic and 
Delia was trembling under the expectation 
of a scolding. 

“Aunt Alice said, ‘Delia, do you know this 
man?’ 

“When Delia looked and saw him, she 
went right down on the floor beside him and 
kissed him and cried over him and rubbed 
his hair. Then she sat on the floor and took 
his head in her lap and began to order Aunt 
Alice around, to get water and smelling-salts 
and a fan, while she took oflp his dirty collar 
and patted him and cried over him and 
laughed over him, all excited. 

“There wasn’t any doubt he was her hus- 
band; he wasn’t the kind of a man you’d kiss 
if he wasn’t your husband; so we all began 
to hope he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t. By- 
and-by he opened his eyes and looked at us, 
and when he saw Delia had his head in her 
lap he smiled and shut his eyes again and 
reached for her hand and held it hard. 

“Delia was terribly embarrassed. She 
didn’t offer to move; she hardly looked up. 
Shame seemed to claim her for its own. She 
waited for Aunt Alice to speak. Aunt Alice 
waited, too, thinking hard. Grandmother 
and I didn’t say anything. We never do 


152 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

when Aunt Alice is thinking out a problem. 
The silence was strong and kind of funny. 

‘‘By-and-by Aunt Alice spoke. ‘Delia, 
I will telephone for a doctor and while ^e 
are waiting for him to come you may put 
your husband’s head on a pillow and leave 
him resting here while we fix up a bed for 
him.’ 

“I was surprised and so was Delia. She 
fixed the pillow and followed Aunt Alice out 
of the room. I didn’t know where they went 
at the time, but I found out afterward they 
fixed a bed out in the little cabin behind the 
house. I suppose you remember the little 
house where Grandmother lived long ago 
while this house was being built. 

‘ ‘ Grandmother and I stayed in the sitting- 
room and hardly knew whether to talk or be 
silent, while the man (his name is Michael 
O’Shea, so I might as well call him that, 
though we didn’t know it at the time) lay on 
the floor. When he roused a little and tried 
to get up Grandmother told him to lie still 
and Delia would soon come back. 

“The doctor got here just as Forest came 
in for 'his regular Saturday-evening call, 
which was lucky because Michael was too 
sick to walk. They made a chair with their 
arms and took him out to the little house. 

“To-day Delia has been telling Aunt Alice 
about him. 

‘ ‘ She and Michael have been married since 
ever they landed in this country five years 
ago. Think of it ! They had no money and 


A KITCHEN EOMANCE 


153 


decided to work separately till they could 
save up a lot to keep house with. Delia got 
work with Aunt Alice, as you know, and 
Michael found a place in the city as a coach- 
man. He had to take care of the lady’s 
flower-beds, too. He got sick this fall and 
she had to get another man. As soon as 
Michael was a little better she turned him 
away and kept the other man. 

^^Poor Michael! He came to Hawthorne 
to see Delia, but he wasn’t strong enough to 
travel and had to send a boy with a note to 
tell Delia he was waiting to see her at the 
depot and would she please come. I told 
you how she went and left the apple-sauce 
to burn. Delia was afraid to let him come 
here ; she thought Aunt Alice might be strict 
about it; so she told him to go find a room 
somewhere and rest till he was able to work 
and she would come and see him sometimes. 

‘‘He could hardly walk to find a place to 
live and all the people he asked to take him 
wouldn’t do it because he looked so sick they 
didn’t want him on their hands. So he came 
back here and Delia was still too scared to 
take him in. When she sent him away he 
only went as far as the road and sat down 
by the gateway to rest. Then he mustered 
the courage to come and make an appeal to 
Aunt Alice. 

“Now, isn’t that a romantic thing to hap- 
pen right here in this everyday house! 

“Delia is so pleased to get him, even sick, 
that she can’t think of anything else. This 


154 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

morning she filled the salt-shakers with sugar 
and spoiled Aunt Alice’s boiled eggs. She 
giggles and blushes all the time and runs out 
t^o thjB cabin to see if he is all right. 

‘‘Aunt Alice says they may live in the 
cabin and perhaps when Michael is stronger 
he can chop wood and work about the place 
instead of her hiring a man from the village. 
It will be very nice for them, but I am sorry 
about the cabin, because, I was planning to 
have it for a play-house, I mean theater 
plays. Our lovely dramatization of ‘ Ivanhoe ’ 
will have to be staged somewhere else. 

“Loads of love, 
“Hale. 

“P. S. I didn’t answer your question about 
the reading-lessons. It is all right, I guess. 
Miss Marsh lets me read as I like, though 
she never praises me for it. Three of my 
friends read the same way now, and they all 
listen politely since that first day. 

“Hale. 

“P. S. again. Are we very poor?” 

The advent of Michael O’Shea caused an 
unwonted stir in Miss Merrill’s well-ordered 
household. Delia the steady was so ‘ ‘ stirred 
about” that she was hardly accountable for 
her acts. 

Sugar in the salt-shakers was only one of 
her numerous lapses from the accustomed 
ways of life. Miss Alice was annoyed to find 


A KITCHEN EOMANCE 


155 


a succession of mistakes following in the wake 
of her once accurate Delia. She found the 
broom resting upon its business end instead 
of reversed, as she had always required, to 
save its shape; the curtains were raised one 
morning three inches above the middle sash, 
instead of on a line with it ; the rolls were al- 
lowed to rise too much ; the batter cakes were 
served lukewarm; and the eggs were allowed 
♦ to cook too long. 

The climax was reached when the poor be- 
flustered Delia, intent upon filling the tea- 
kettle, lifted the stove cover and poured a 
dipperful of water into the firepot. 

Miss Merrill opened the kitchen door in 
time to see this unfortunate mistake. She 
seized the girl by the shoulders and shook 
her till her head wobbled in all directions. 

There, Delia,’’ she said, panting for 
breath, ‘^that is enough of such mooning! If 
Michael affects you in this way, we ’ll have to 
send him away and you with him. I can’t 
have such unaccountable actions.” 

When she found that the steam had burned 
Delia’s arm and hand, she took the trouble 


156 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

to bandage it herself and was more gentle 
than Delia could have expected. 

that light-headed, Miss Merrill,’^ she 
deplored, canT keep me mind from me 
man lyin’ out there in the little house. I’ve 
been that lonesome without him these five 
years it’s kept me steady and quiet like. 
Now he’s here I’m like a crazy-headed girl 
again, that merry and flighty. I was a giddy 
girl in me day. Miss Merrill, and Michael is 
the b’y that stole me away from the wake 
at Tim O’Haran’s and clapped me onto the 
boat to get me away from two other b’ys 
making eyes at me. He put me in care of 
the stewardess to keep for him till we reached 
America and then we were married all right 
and proper. Shure, any woman ’d be proud 
of such a bold, brave man as Michael was, — 
and will be again when he ’s well, poor bairn. ’ ’ 
So by fragments and between laughing and 
crying, the story came to Miss Merrill, and 
though she could not imagine looking with 
favor upon a man who would steal her away 
from a funeral to ship her overseas, she ad- 
mitted that she and Delia were different in 


A KITCHEN KOMANCE 157 

temperament, and if the girl was satisfied, 
she ought to be. 

As for Michael, the love and care Delia 
lavished upon him soon transformed him into 
a clean, jolly Irishman who could turn his 
hand to almost any little job about the place. 
Indeed, Michael became quite an important 
member of the community, for in Hawthorne 
there was many a manless household where 
he was continually needed to put up storm- 
windows, empty ash-barrels, and attend to the 
numerous little jobs that require a man’s 
muscle. 


CHAPTER XIV 


HA1*E TO THE EESCUE 

^ the autumn reddened and died 



upon the woods and hills, Hale grew 


more and more to love her new sur- 


roundings. 

It was part of her nature, till now unde- 
veloped, to love the majestic march of the 
seasons, especially in their appeal to her eye. 
The riot of yellow and green and purple that 
had been the stage setting for September 
days in Hawthorne was an experience un- 
known to her city life and never to be for- 
gotten, should she live to be a hundred. 

Grandmother’s garden was buried in 
golden-glow and nasturtiums, purple asters 
and purple pansies ; the roadsides were 
masses of goldenrod and wild asters, and 
over it all hung a veil of golden sunshine. 


158 


HALE TO THE EESCUE 159 


“Summer’s best of weather 
And Autumn’s best of cheer” 

were words that for the first time in her life 
held a real meaning. 

Gradually the changes came. Frosts blot- 
ted out the nasturtiums, the asters went to 
seed, and the pansies alone were left to 
weather the cold and wait for the snow. 
Along the roadsides the grasses dried, the 
goldenrod browned and ripened, while over- 
head the maples and oaks grew brilliant in 
red and gold. A new color harmony — red, 
brown, and orange — ^was draping the stage 
for October. 

No companion in all the world. Hale de- 
cided, could have better introduced her to the 
secrets of field and woods than Eoy, on those 
autumn days. Eoy knew where there were 
wintergreen berries, and took her to find 
them. She mailed her father a box of them, 
because Grandmother said they would please 
him. 

Eoy knew where there were shagbark trees, 
and she followed him there as well, tramping 
the sun-fiecked woods, over and through the 


160 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

leaf carpets, with Ted at their heels. Down 
on their knees burrowing for nuts among the 
leaves, they shouted and laughed and grew 
warm and rosy while they gathered their 
hoard. 

They made the acquaintance of bright-eyed 
squirrels through competition in the har- 
vest. 

‘‘Poor little beasts laughed Hale, in sym- 
pathy; “we are taking their winter food, Roy. 
Aren’t we the mean things! See that little 
fellow looking at us. Let’s sit as still as 
mice and see if he’ll dare to come and get 
this nut.” 

She laid a nut conspicuously at a little dis- 
tance, and retired to a convenient post to 
watch and wait. Roy whittled a stick as he 
sat beside her. Ted had left them to follow 
a scent across which his busy nose had passed. 

‘ ‘ See, he ’s coming down, ’ ’ whispered Hale. 
“He never takes his eyes off us. Look, Roy, 
how he flits his tail so nervously.” 

Slowly the little creature came nearer, step- 
ping daintily over the leaves, stopping to 
listen, his tail sweeping in nervous quivers 


HALE TO THE EESCUE 


161 


behind him. A sudden motion of Eoy busy 
knife, and he turned tail to flee, but thought 
better of it when all was quiet again. Step 
by step, alert, suspicious, he came nearer and 
nearer to the nut, till suddenly, a pounce. 
He had it and was speeding to safety, closely 
pursued by a shaggy brown dog. 

‘^No, no, Ted! come back.’’ 

Oh, well ! Mr. Squirrel was safe, of course, 
scrambling up the tree and turning to peer 
over a limb at his pursuer. Ted barked in 
disgust that while he was searching far afield 
for game which he could not find, here was 
a grand chance to have caught one of those 
saucy fellows he had so long had his eye on. 
Too bad. 

His only consolation was to nose atfection- 
ately at Eoy and Hale and be lovingly scolded 
for chasing a poor little squirrel. 

Sometimes the river called them, its waters 
stained with dyes from factories miles up the 
stream, its bosom dotted with floating leaves 
bound they knew not whither. 

The safe but clumsy rowboat knew many 
hours of their companionship. Hale was 


162 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

‘^flabby,” as Roy said. She knew in theory 
how to row the boat, after a few lessons, and 
practised at it as they floated down the 
stream, but could not budge an inch of prog- 
ress against the current. 

“You’ll get there some day. Hale,” Roy 
comforted her, “you have never had the prac- 
tice. Just feel that!” 

“I know it,” admitted Hale, feeling his 
muscle again, indulgently. “I haven’t had 
a chance.” 

The apple crop drew its share of their at- 
tention. The orchard was a busy place in 
those days. Two men worked all day for 
many days picking and sorting and packing 
the fruit. Hale and Roy made themselves 
familiar by “inside information” with every 
variety that grew there, and wished for 
double capacity, at that. Every luscious 
specimen seemed a challenge to their teeth. 

“Gee! but I’m plumb full,” groaned Roy, 
regarding the half-eaten apple in his hand 
with rueful regret. “Seems a pity to discard 
such a juicy morsel ; but, honest to goodness, 
I can’t swallow another bite. Want it?” 


HALE TO THE EESCUE 163 


Hale groaned in sympathetic fullness. 
She, too, had a half-eaten beauty in her 
hands which she scraped from time to time 
with her teeth. She held it up for answer, 
and Eoy shied his remnant at a neighboring 
tree and shattered it to fragments. 

‘‘Let’s go over to Pine Hollow grove this 
afternoon and get some more nuts,” sug- 
gested Hale. 

“Can’t,” said Eoy briefly. 

“Why notl” 

“Got a date with some of the fellows.” 

“Who are they?” 

“Eace Wade and Bob Evarts.” 

Hale looked up quickly from where she sat 
on the grass with Ted’s head pillowed on her 
knee. 

“Not Frank Parsons, I hope,” she asked, 
suspiciously. 

Eoy stooped to pick a burr out of Ted’s 
shaggy coat and the task kept him occupied 
for several minutes. 

“He might be there, I don’t know for 
sure. Eace is the one I’m going with.” 

“Where are you going?” 


164 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

Roy flashed her a look and again busied 
himself with the burr. 

Seems to me you’re getting inquisitive,” 
he said; ^‘we are going on a hike, if you must 
know. ’ ’ 

‘‘Oh, no; I don’t have to know, if you don’t 
want me to. I didn’t suppose it was a 
secret,” said Hale, lightly. “Get up, Ted, 
I have to go in and practise an hour before 
dinner. ’ ’ 

She brushed off the straws and dog-hairs 
from her dress with careful exactness, all the 
time wondering if she could say to Roy what 
she thought she ought to say. Forest had 
mentioned Frank Parsons as one of the bad 
influences over the younger boys of the town, 
and she knew that Race Wade and Bob Evarts 
were two of the boys he was anxious about. 
Perhaps Roy didn’t know about that. 

“I hope Frank Parsons isn’t going to be 
with them this afternoon,” she ventured, 
timidly. “Forest thinks he is a mean sort 
of boy.” 

“You don’t need to worry about me,” was 
the confident answer. “I know Frank Par- 


HALE TO THE KESCUE 


165 


sons better than you do, or Forest either, and 
I don’t like him any better than you do. He 
won’t do me any harm, I can promise you; 
I’m not likely to bow down to his say-so.” 

Thus comforted. Hale raced with Ted and 
Eoy up through the orchard and the garden, 
and went in to her practising. Late that 
afternoon she had cause to think again of 
Boy’s remark and Forest’s fears. 

Since Eoy was not at liberty to go with her 
to Pine Hollow grove, she decided to go alone 
to a nearer one, a grove close to the river at 
the bend. It was rather unusual, going with- 
out his companionship, but the call of the 
October afternoon was irresistible and her 
mood not averse to solitude. 

The season was getting late, but there were 
still a few field and roadside beauties to 
gladden her eyes. The persistence of plant 
life even after a series of blighting frosts was 
a source of wonder to Hale. The fresh up- 
shooting of clover leaves and the late linger- 
ing of gay nodding arnica-blossoms showed 
her the vitality of apparently frail things. 

The river grove was a cathedral-like ar- 


166 HALE MEERILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

rangement of tall hickory-trees, through 
which the sun slanted in mellow rays, casting 
long parallel shadows out across the river. 

A listless, half-hearted search revealed the 
fact that the nuts she could find would be few 
indeed. She didn’t much care. It was as 
much to her taste to sit comfortably at the 
root of a tree and lean her head back against 
the trunk, and dream and think. Scarcely 
a sound broke the stillness. The river made 
no noise as it slipped gently by ; no wind was 
stirring. All the earth seemed settling down 
to sleep. 

Hale closed her eyes. Her thoughts trav- 
eled back and forth over the past weeks with 
all their new experiences. She had to admit 
that her father was right in telling her that 
the new surroundings would not be as hard 
for her as she had supposed. 

Grandmother was all that he had said. 
Hale was glad for Grandmother ! If it were 
only Aunt Alice, for instance ! Grandmother 
would say that there was honey even in Aunt 
Alice, but Hale still had to use her powers of 
imagination to find it. 


HALE TO THE EESCUE 167 


Then there were Eoy, and Ted, and her 
free and happy romps with them. Why ! the 
very fact that she was not afraid to come to 
this grove and sit alone was because of her 
rambles with them. WTiat would Miss 
Dwight think to hear of her strolling into the 
woods alone ! It would be nice to have Miss 
Dwight here. Still, she certainly was not 
afraid. 

Suddenly a sound out on the river brought 
her out of her day dreams, a soft plop, plop, 
like the dip of oars. Hale opened her eyes 
and cocked her head to make sure that she 
had heard aright. 

If the occupant of the boat intended to 
land at the broken platform on the edge of 
the grove, as she knew the up-river people 
sometimes did, he would pass her on his way 
to the road. Far from being courageous 
now, the thought of having her solitude in- 
vaded filled her with alarm. She would hide. 

She ran lightly to a thicket of alders that 
edged the bank a few rods from where the 
boat would land. Creeping into the midst 
of this shelter, she crouched and waited. 


168 HALE MEREILL HONEY QUEST 

She could now hear voices as the boat ap- 
proached and her fear increased, for she real- 
ized that more than one person might land in 
the grove. After a minute she thought she 
recognized the voices. Yes, that was cer- 
tainly Roy^s giggle. 

The boat drew in toward the landing and 
beached with a thud. From her retreat Hale 
could see the boys leap out, four of them, 
and fasten the rope about a young sapling. 

As they went deeper into the grove, she 
could see that Frank Parsons had his arm 
familiarly across Roy’s shoulder, while the 
other two slouched along behind in a silly 
sort of way that looked suspicious. 

Hale was burning with mortification. She 
knew she was only scantily veiled from their 
sight, if they happened to glance in her direc- 
tion. Remembering what Roy had told her 
once about wood creatures that ‘Hreeze” to 
escape observation, she determined to do just 
that till they were out of the grove. The 
slightest crackle would arrest their attention 
and reveal her to them. 

To her further distress she soon realized 


HALE TO THE EESCUE 


169 


that they did not intend to leave the grove. 

Frank threw himself down in careless ease 
at the foot of the hickory-tree, exactly where 
Hale had been sitting. The others seated 
themselves also, and for the moment all was 
safe for Hale. Two of the boys were out 
of her sight behind the tree, the other two 
were hack to her. 

Frank, whom she could see, took a cigarette 
from a box in his pocket, lighted it like an 
old hand and began to smoke leisurely. Race 
watched him, with admiration and a trace of 
doubt. 

It was not unknown to any of them that 
Frank Parsons was a boy disapproved by 
their elders, careless in speech and actions, 
untidy in dress and appearance, and likely to 
sink rather than to rise in the scale of human 
desirability. None of them liked him very 
much, yet it was thought to be an honor to 
receive his attentions and to be bid to his 
parties, such as they were. This gathering 
in the woods was one of them, and the host 
now lolling at ease making smoke from a 
roll of stuffed paper was arrogantly sure of 


170 HALE MEERILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

his following so long as he kept a few paces 
ahead of them in daring and in pocket- 
money. 

“Have a smoke? he asked Race, at the 
same time lighting a fresh cigarette from the 
glowing butt of his old one. 

Horace Wade lifted his shoulders and 
laughed foolishly. 

“This one won’t make you sick, even if 
the others did ; you are more used to it now, ’ ’ 
Frank told him, between putfs. 

Horace protested. 

“The others didn’t make me sick.” 

“Oh, didn’t they?” laughed Frank. “I 
thought I heard something about your being 
slightly indisposed, headache or some such. 
Don’t get on your ear about it. I didn’t 
mean no harm.” 

Race knew he was being bullied, but he 
considered it desirable to stand well in 
Frank’s opinion at all costs, so he took the 
attitude of a cockerel who has had his su- 
premacy challenged. 

“Give me one; I’ll show you I can smoke 
as well as you. There’s nothing so smart 


HALE TO THE RESCUE 171 


about smoking,’^ he sneered, his chin lifted 
in contempt. 

‘‘They’re a penny apiece to-day,’'’ said 
Frank, coolly, opening the box and drawing 
one up from the row, but keeping it well out 
of the other’s reach. 

“You’re an old robber!” said Race, mak- 
ing no move to take the cigarette, but eye- 
ing it expectantly. “You don’t have to pay 
that much for them.” 

“Very true, my son,” agreed Frank, ar- 
rogantly, “but I’ll not part with them for any 
less. If you want them for what I pay, trot 
up to Bailey’s and buy them for yourself. 
That would let loose a pretty cage of 
monkeys, eh? You see, when you fellows 
don’t dare to buy them in the regular market, 
you have to pay a broker, that’s me, to do it 
for you.” 

“Let us have them three for two cents,” 
begged Race. 

“Nope,” insisted Frank; “not enough 
profit to pay for the risk. Do you want it or 
don’t you?” 

Race made a show of hunting his clothes 


172 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

through, and finally lighted upon the coin 
he had put in his pocket for this very pur- 
pose. He handed it to Frank grudgingly and 
received the cigarette. After all, he was a 
bit eager to try it again. Perhaps this one 
would not upset him as the others had. He 
hoped it would satisfy a queer sort of hungry 
feeling that nothing else touched. 

As soon as Race was safely launched, 
Frank turned his attention to Bob. 

‘‘How ’bout it. Bob? Do you feel the 
need of a quiet smoke?” he asked. 

Bob apparently felt the need of keeping 
up with the procession. He picked himself 
up and came over without a word, laid a cent 
in Frank’s ready hand and received his weed. 
Frank helped him light it from the last spark 
of his own and stood up to survey the two 
novices. 

“Not so strong, Bob, you’ll have it all 
burnt up in no time. Draw easy and get 
your money’s worth. Race has the idea. 
Ever try swallowing the smoke? Oh, Roy, I 
forgot about you! Here, have a smoke. I’ll 
let you have a couple at cost, two for a cent. 


HALE TO THE RESCUE 173 

seeing you’re the guest of honor. What do 
you say?” 

don’t smoke,” said Roy, coming to 
stand beside Frank, ‘^and I think you’d bet- 
ter cut it out, too, if you want to amount to 
anything. ’ ’ 

Listen to the preacher,” laughed Frank, 
slapping the boy roughly on the shoulder. 
^^Why, bless you, little one. General Grant 
smoked, and he amounted to something, I 
shouldn’t wonder.” 

^‘He didn’t smoke cigarettes, and anyway 
he wasn’t very tall. I don’t intend to smoke 
till I’m twenty-one, if I do at all. A fellow 
ought to give himself all the advantage he 
can,” averred Roy, moving over to the tree 
and leaning his back against it, in considera- 
tion of his smarting shoulder. 

Frank followed and prodded a strong and 
sharply nailed forefinger against Roy’s chest. 

Don’t preach, sonny,” he admonished 
sharply. ^‘Nothing makes me so mad as 
preachin’, especially from a young puppy 
like you who don’t know any more than what 
his mother has told him. That blessed 


174 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

brother of yours has tried the same tactics 
before now. If it runs in the family, I’ll be 
sorry I brought you. Race thought you’d be 
a sport. That’s why I let him bring you.” 

“Race didn’t tell me what he was bringing 
me to,” answered Roy, squirming away from 
the prodding finger. “If it’s a smoking 
party, I can take myself out of your way, and 
go where the company is more to my taste. ’ ’ 

“No, you can’t,” threatened Frank, at the 
same moment grabbing Roy’s wrist in a vise- 
like grip; “and don’t get sassy about the 
company, or I’ll lick the daylights out o’ 
you. You’re with the Romans now and 
you’ll do as the Romans do.” 

Roy’s jerk to release himself accomplished 
nothing more than to excite from Frank an 
answering jerk which landed him on the 
ground, his wrist still held in that ill-tem- 
pered clutch. He found himself still fur- 
ther imprisoned by a knee on either side of 
his body, close up to his arm-pits, and the 
weight of Frank’s muscular body atop his 
stomach. 

“Now what do you say, Mr. Grranny! 


HALE TO THE EESCUE 175 


Think you’ll walk off and leave the bunch, 
do you? Where’s your muscle I I’m as 
strong as you are, if I do smoke, and per- 
haps a mite stronger. No, you don’t!” for 
Roy was making vain attempts to free him- 
self. 

For a few minutes, Frank was content to 
sit and gloat over his victim, a malicious light 
creeping over his face. 

‘‘You’re altogether too dainty a young gen- 
tleman,” he decided at last, “and I’ve half a 
mind to make a man of you. Yes, I think 
you need a little course of training.” 

Reaching his free hand into his pocket, 
Frank drew forth the cigarette box. 

“You needn’t mind to pay me for this in 
advance. I ’ll collect afterward, ’ ’ he laughed, 
cuttingly. “Here, take this in your ruby 
lips.” 

Roy shut his lips resolutely and rolled his 
head from side to side to avoid the cigarette, 
no more, perhaps, than the dirty fingers of 
his tormentor. The odds were against him, 
however, and Frank was in no courteous 
frame of mind. The claw-like nails at last 


176 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

brought forth an involuntary cry, and Roy^s 
parted lips closed over the cigarette. 

At this moment Frank’s attention was ar- 
rested by a sound behind him. Rising to 
investigate, he was met, half up and half 
down, by what he took to be a fury let loose 
from limbo, which hurled itself upon him and 
went crashing with him down to the pro- 
truding roots of the hickory tree. Not even 
Race and Bob, who had seen her coming, 
could leap in time to prevent Hale ’s attack. 

Roy, finding himself free, scrambled up 
and sprang to put himself between his cousin 
and the wrath of the assailed bully. A mo- 
ment’s observation, however, proved that 
Hale’s work had removed that need. Frank 
lay writhing in pain, between swearing and 
crying, and, though furiously angry, quite 
helpless to retaliate. 

Hale, terrified at the success of her on- 
slaught, and for the moment unaware of the 
boy’s helplessness or of any hurt to herself, 
jumped up and clung trembling to Roy’s arm. 

‘‘Don’t let him kill me, Roy,” she begged. 

The other lads closed around her. 



Not even Race and Bob could leap in time to prevent Hale’s attack. — Page 176 . 






HALE TO THE RESCUE 177 


can’t hurt you, Hale; see, he is down 
and out.” 

They soon became aware that Frank’s diffi- 
culty was more than an ordinary hurt. He 
was completely transformed from a swagger- 
ing bully to a whimpering craven, moaning 
piteously among the leaves. 

‘‘What is it, Frank old man?” asked Race, 
kneeling beside him. 

“It’s my arm. I guess she broke it,” 
panted Frank, through white lips. He at- 
tempted to lift the arm, but succeeded only 
in adding fresh torture to his already suffi- 
cient misery. “Get me to a doctor, can’t 
you?” 

“Roy knows first aid,” said Race, com- 
fortingly; “he’ll fix you up.” 

It was a matter of some minutes to per- 
suade Frank to submit to any attention from 
Roy, his resentment against Hale being so 
strong it included all members of her fam- 
ily ; but his misery served to weaken his reso- 
lution and he at last submitted. 

Roy went to work in a business-like way 
to prepare the necessary splint and band- 


178 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

ages, calling into use all the handkerchiefs 
in the party, except Hale’s. This little 
square of linen was already working in an- 
other capacity, for the moment Hale realized 
what had happened she assumed the office of 
nurse without delay. Long training with her 
mother had taught her many things that can 
be done to make a sufferer more comfortable. 

She ran down to the river bank, found the 
old bailing tin in the bottom of the boat, 
and returned with it full of water. Kneeling 
by the boy, she took off her sweater and made 
it into a pillow for his head. Then she 
dipped her handkerchief in the water and 
bathed his face. 

The coolness was a welcome refreshment, 
and Frank murmured his relief ; but opening 
his eyes and seeing who it was that brought 
it, he scowled and tried to move his head 
away. The effort was too painful, so he lay 
still. 

‘‘Please fry to forgive me, Frank,” im- 
plored Hale, as she continued to cool the 
handkerchief and refresh his face; “I didn’t 
know I was going to knock you over. I am 


HALE TO THE EESCUE 179 


dreadfully sorry I have hurt you. There, it 
will be better soon. Of course, you canT for- 
give me yet, you feel so bad, but try to be- 
lieve I didnT think of hurting you like this.’’ 

Frank lay with closed eyes and rigid lips. 
He was not in a forgiving mood certainly. 
Hale could understand that. She did what 
she could to keep him easy while Roy applied 
his bandage and the boys discussed plans for 
getting him to town. 

The boat was deemed out of the question, 
and it was finally decided that Bob should go 
up to the road and hail the first automobile 
he should see. Frank was helped up to a 
sitting position and propped against the tree 
to get the ‘‘swim” out of his eyes, so he could 
walk out to the road. 

It was about this time that one of them dis- 
covered Hale’s bruise. It was an ugly black 
swelling over her right eye. 

“I thought I felt a little dizzy,” she ad- 
mitted, feeling of it gingerly. “It isn’t 
much, I guess. I ’ll bathe it. ” 

She went to the river for fresh water and 
stayed there till the boys were ready to prop 


180 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

Frank out to the road. When she saw them 
starting she came running up to them and 
held out her hand to Frank. 

‘H’m not going up to the road, because 
iUs just as well that nobody knew I was mixed 
up in this. I shall never tell that I knocked 
you down, if you ’d rather not have it known. 
I have my punishment here,’’ she pointed to 
her forehead, ‘‘if that’s any satisfaction to 
you.” 

Frank was surprised into taking her hand, 
which he dropped again immediately. He 
thought hand-shaking a very embarrassing 
ceremony; but it was a relief to know that 
she wasn’t going to glory over his downfall. 
He was half displeased with himself to find 
that his resentment against Hale had been 
practically washed away by her gentle touch. 
His self-respect seemed to demand a certain 
amount of resentment to feed upon. The un- 
settled state of his emotions annoyed him. 

“Do as you please about that,” he said 
gruffly. 

“You wait here. Hale, till I see Frank 


HALE TO THE RESCUE 


181 


safely aboard the auto/' said Roy; ^^then I'll 
take the boat back where it belongs and land 
you opposite Grandmother's." 


CHAPTER XV 

AUNT ALICE INVESTIGATES 

W HEN Hale had so confidently 
promised to keep her part in 
the scrimmage a secret, she had 
not reckoned with her aunt. 

It was quite natural that an explanation 
should he demanded when Hale appeared at 
supper with her bruised forehead. All her 
efforts to conceal it had been fruitless. She 
had tried cold water and hot water in turn ; 
she had powdered it freely; she had tried 
to comb her hair low to cover it ; the discolora- 
tion persisted in being conspicuous. 

‘‘What have you done to your forehead, 
HaleT’ asked Aunt Alice in a tone more an- 
noyed than sympathetic. 

“I fell against a hickory- tree and bruised 
it,’’ said Hale, hoping the answer would suf- 
fice. 


182 


AUNT ALICE INVESTIGATES 183 

^^How did you manage to be so awkward T’ 

‘‘I was jumping and I didn’t land just 
right.” 

‘‘Jumping!” repeated Aunt Alice. “I 
'think you are too big a girl to go jumping 
around hickory-trees. Were you alone?” 

“Roy was there.” 

“Roy! What were you doing, playing a 
game? Was Roy jumping, too?” 

“No, Aunt Alice.” 

“Why not be more explicit? Tell us just 
what you were doing and what happened. 
You’re talkative enough at times.” 

“I can’t tell you any more. Aunt Alice. I 
promised I wouldn’t.” 

“Promised Roy?” 

Hale saw her mistake. 

“No, there were other — people there.” 

Scenting a mystery did not tend to make 
Miss Merrill less keen on the chase. 

“Hale, you must certainly explain what 
you are talking about.” 

“I’m not talking about anything. Aunt 
Alice. I have told you all I am at liberty to 
tell.” 


184 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

‘‘Are you ashamed to tellT^ suggested her 
aunt. 

“No, Aunt Alice. 

“What nonsense then! You shouldn’t 
make promises like that.” 

For the time being no more was said on 
the subject of the bruise and its cause; but 
another session was in store for Hale before 
her aunt was done with the question. 

Hale ate very little supper and went to bed 
soon after, for her head was most uncomfort- 
able. She reviewed the conversation with 
her aunt, as she lay composing herself for 
sleep, and hoped there would be no more to 
answer on that score. 

“I simply won’t tell, no matter what she 
does to me,” she declared. 

The door opened and her aunt turned on 
the light. 

“Don’t you want a damp cloth on your 
head?” she asked. 

“I have one, thank you.” 

“So you have.” 

Then, without further preliminary. Miss 
Merrill renewed her efforts. 


AUNT ALICE INVESTIGATES 185 


^^Hale, iUs all nonsense for you to make a 
secret of a thing like this. You would bet- 
ter tell me before I call up Eoy and find out 
from him.” 

Hale sat up in bed, letting the damp cloth 
fall unheeded on the pillow. She stared at 
her aunt in astonishment. 

‘‘If you do that I shall think you are — 
dishonorable,” she said. 

It was as if Hale had three eyes, the bruise 
staring unwinkingly, the eye beneath it very 
light by contrast, and the other glowing dark 
with indignation. For a moment Miss Mer- 
rill stood transfixed; then her self-respect 
called for action. 

“Lie down. Hale,” she ordered. “Now 
listen to me.” Hale closed her visible eye. 
“Do you realize that while your father is 
away I am your guardian and responsible 
for your welfare!” 

“Yes, Aunt Alice.” 

“And do you realize that you are expected 
to obey me as you would your father if he 
were here!” 

“My father would not try to make me 


186 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

break a promise/^ remarked Hale, quietly. 

‘ ‘ How would be, or bow shall I, know that 
tbe promise was not better broken than 
keptr’ 

“He would trust me.’’ 

“How can you be sure it isn’t wiser to 
break it?” 

“Because I know all tbe circumstances. 
It is nothing to you or to me, but a great deal 
to some one else that I should keep this prom- 
ise. You can pump me a hundred years, and 
punish me, if you like, but I’U never teU un- 
less -he teUs first.” 

“He!” repeated Miss Merrill, pouncing 
upon the word. “You have made some kind 
of a promise to a common boy, and now 
you’re ashamed to tell.” 

Hale commanded her patience with an ef- 
fort. “The boy is common enough. I’ll ad- 
mit, but there’s no shame in the promise, and 
I’ve said all I’m going to say.” 

This proved to be true, for Miss Merrill 
could get no further reply to her questions. 
She left Hale’s room with much the same 
baffled feeling she had experienced years be- 


AUNT ALICE INVESTIGATES 187 


fore in that quarrel with her brother of which 
Hale had been able to learn so little. 

It is always hard to say just how words 
and actions work subconsciously in one’s 
mind and finally show results. Miss Merrill 
never cared to linger long over the memory 
of her unguarded remark to Hale about her 
mother, yet it would bob up and surprise her 
at times, as she discovered new phases of 
Hale ’s character. 

A certain sense of justice, long neglected, 
was beginning to shake her faith in the part 
she had acted in that old quarrel. For many 
years she had been content to hug her own 
opinion to her heart in unreasoning certainty. 
It annoyed her to find she now seemed to need 
proofs that her judgments had been correct. 

Upon leaving Hale’s room. Miss Merrill 
determined to set about getting her proofs at 
once. She went to her desk and wrote a let- 
ter, addressed it with a name that would have 
surprised Hale, and went to the post-office to 
mail it herself. 

Being in the village, she decided to run in 
and see her sister a few minutes. 


188 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

Mrs. Hammond greeted her sister from the 
stairway. The greeting was interrupted by 
a sniff and a question. 

‘‘Do I smell witch-hazel U’ 

“I guess you do/^ said Mrs. Hammond. 
“I have been rubbing Roy’s arm. He lamed 
it a little this afternoon.” 

“How?” 

“He and Frank Parsons had a disagree- 
ment about cigarettes.” 

“Cigarettes!” gasped Miss Merrill. 

“You needn’t be alarmed, Alice. Roy 
won’t smoke till he is older, if he does then. 
He has promised to let his father light the 
match when he feels he must have his first 
smoke. I can trust him for that.” 

Miss Merrill was not thinking of Roy, how- 
ever. She pleaded work at home as an ex- 
cuse to get away from her sister’s, declaring 
she had only stepped in to see if they were 
all well. She must go. 

Once out again in the dark, she turned in 
the opposite direction from home and walked 
rapidly toward a block of houses called the 
tenements. She could hardly walk fast 


AUNT ALICE INVESTIGATES 189 


enough to keep up with her thoughts ; some- 
times she spoke half audibly. 

She would ferret this thing out if it took 
the last ounce of strength she had. If that 
Parsons boy had made Hale smoke cigarettes 
and exacted a promise from her not to tell, 
she would have him horsewhipped, if she had 
to do it herself. No knowing how venture- 
some Hale might be along those lines. She 
might talk about her father trusting her and 
all that, but there was the child’s mother to 
consider. No knowing how blood will tell. 

Her imperative knock at the Parsons ’ door 
was answered by Frank’s mother. 

‘^Why, Miss Merrill, who’d ’a’ thought to 
see you here!” she said, swinging the door 
back to reveal a stuffy, untidy room into 
which Miss Merrill stepped with the manner 
of a general who brooks no delays nor eva- 
sions. 

A group of small children broke away from 
the old lounge on which Frank was lying, his 
bandaged arm and its unwieldy splint having 
been the center of interest. The boy half 
rose to greet the guest, supposing it to be one 


190 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

of the neighbors to inquire for his injury. 

Seeing his mistake, his first thought was 
that Hale had told. He felt a queer sense of 
disappointment quite new in his experience, 
a sense of having lost a friend. He was re- 
lieved, then, to hear Miss Merrill’s first ques- 
tion. 

‘^Are you hurt, too?” 

‘‘Well, yes, I am, a little,” he answered, 
smiling nervously. ‘ ‘ Just a broken arm. ’ ’ 

“I never!” exclaimed Miss Merrill. 
“First it’s Hale, and then it’s Roy, and now 
you. I should like to know what happened 
to you all.” 

“Didn’t Hale tell?” asked Frank, eyeing 
her steadily. 

“No, and I imagine you know why. She 
made you a promise, didn ’t she ? ’ ’ 

“Well, yes, she did,” admitted Frank; 
“and she kept it, did she?” 

“Yes; but if she smoked a cigarette be- 
cause you made her do it, I want to know it, 
promise or no promise. You are to answer 
me that.” 

Frank looked sheepishly at his mother, to 


AUNT ALICE INVESTIGATES 191 


whom this cigarette business was all new. 
She was too busy with her big family and her 
outside work to do more than clothe and feed 
her eldest son. His moral welfare was quite 
beyond her, she admitted. The broken arm 
had been explained to her as an accident, 
which was true enough as far as it went. 

Frank Parsons was not accustomed to ex- 
plain his acts to any one. A sullen silence 
was much more in his line, let people fuss and 
fume as much as they liked about what he 
had done. This was, however, a little dif- 
ferent. Perhaps it was the novelty of being 
able to deny a charge against him that made 
him willing to speak on this occasion. 

To give Frank the credit due him, it was 
really something more than that. He had a 
boy’s sense of justice, after all, and he felt it 
would be mean to let Hale’s generous prom- 
ise be twisted as her aunt was twisting it. 
So he told as much of the afternoon’s history 
as pertained to Koy and Hale. 

‘‘None of your goody-goody preachin’ for 
that girl,” he ended, with spirit; “a regular 
knock-down-and-drag-out blow she dealt me. 


192 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

and I’m darned if I don’t think she’s a plucky 
little kid.” 

Miss Merrill had much food for thought 
as she went slowly home. It was not alto- 
gether soothing to feel that she had doubted 
Hale’s motives. It savored too much of the 
old snarl of doubt that had entangled her 
years ago and kept her unhappy ever since. 
She resolved to say nothing to Hale about 
her visit to Frank. If the child wanted to 
keep her promise, let her have the satisfac- 
tion of thinking it was a secret. 


CHAPTER XVI 


A BIG UNDERTAKING 

T AYE you a minute to sparer^ 
I 1 asked Forest, popping his head 

A JL into Mr. Stickney’s office late one 
afternoon in November, after a round of les- 
sons in the grade rooms of the building. 

‘‘As many as you like,’^ was the hearty 
reply. “Speak on, thy servant heareth.’’ 

“You think I am always asking you fav- 
ors,’’ said Forest, good-naturedly, “and per- 
haps you have good grounds for that opin- 
ion. I’m here now for a like offiense.” 

“I knew it by the look in your eye. Take 
a chair. Your ideas have been good ones so 
far, and I foresee that I shall be falling into 
line on this one, if it is anything I can help 
you do.” 

“It surely is! Indeed, it could hardly go 
on without you. ’ ’ 


193 


194 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

‘‘Good! What is it!’’ 

“A Community Christmas/^ said Forest; 
“ever hear of oneT’ 

“Not that I remember.’^ 

“You^d remember it if you ever heard of 
it,’’ Forest assured him. “I heard through 
a friend of mine who helped celebrate that 
way last year, and I am very eager to try 
one on in Hawthorne.” 

“Tell me about it,” suggested Mr. Stick- 
ney, looking with admiration at the younger 
man’s earnest boyish face, alight with the 
vision of his new plans. Few young men, 
he thought, were so alive to the community 
spirit, so little absorbed in their o^vn personal 
affairs. 

“The idea of a Community Christmas is 
to get the whole town interested in one thing, 
to steer the festival away from selfish home 
celebrations, which are all very pleasant for 
the rich and the light-hearted, but only make 
the lot of the poor and the sad seem more 
miserable by contrast. In the one I heard 
about there was a big outdoor tree in the 
public square, a pageant acted by the young 


A BIG UNDEETAKING 


195 


people, and a tour of the town by groups of 
carol singers to take the Christmas spirit 
and a bit of melody to old people and shut- 
ins.’’ 

Mr. Stickney nodded slowly. 

‘^That sounds interesting; but it also 
sounds like a big undertaking. I suppose the 
tree necessitates trinkets for all the children 
and bags of candy and such fixings.” 

^^No; that’s just the part we ought to leave 
out. If the tree merely stands for popped- 
com and candy, it will have no advantage 
over the regulation home tree. This tree 
will have nothing on it but lights, something 
beautiful to gather round and look at, noth- 
ing to tear off and throw around. ’ ’ 

‘^I see,” said Mr. Stickney, still nodding. 
^‘And the pageant, what’s your idea? We 
can’t get the whole town into the hall.” 

‘^We don’t want to. The pageant must be 
acted outdoors, under the stars, where every- 
body will see. and enjoy it. Don’t you think 
that sounds more Christmas-like than any 
church-vestry affair you ever heard of?” 

‘‘Yes, it does, and I am in for it heart and 


196 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

soul,” promised Mr. Stickney, letting his 
enthusiasm shine out to meet Forest’s. 
‘‘There is a tremendous amount of work to 
be done, and we ought to get started at once 
if we expect to do it right. ’ ’ 

“Good!” cried Forest, springing up to get 
paper and pencil. “You’re the most satis- 
factory pal a poor music-teacher ever had. 
It is going to be a lot of work, but together 
we can manage it.” 

“It’s my impression that if we want to 
make the most of the idea we must involve 
as many people as possible. It shouldn’t be 
a small-group affair,” suggested Mr. Stick- 
ney. 

“Right again,” agreed Forest, “I was go- 
ing to speak of that. Now, see; I have put 
on these four sheets of paper the headings 
for the four divisions of the celebration, — 
Tree, Pageant, Carols, and Gifts.” 

“Gifts?” questioned Mr. Stickney. 

“Yes. Not for the tree, but for quiet dis- 
tribution among the really needy of the town. 
Mr. McAllister knows most about that branch 
of the work, so we’ll put him down for chair- 


A BIG UNDERTAKING 


197 


man. I want the direction of the carols, so 
I’ll jnst naturally help myself to that job, 
and give you the office of Chairman of the 
Pageant. ’ ’ 

‘‘This seems to be sort of a close corpora- 
tion,” laughed Mr. Stickney, “the way we 
take the high offices for ourselves.” 

“Don’t fret; nobody else wants them very 
ravenously. Now for the tree committee, I 
hope we can persuade Matt Jarvis to be 
chairman. He has a well-concealed desire 
to be active in such affairs, but he’s so quiet 
and diffident that nobody ever thinks of ask- 
ing him. This won’t necessitate his being 
conspicuous and will please him, I know.” 

“That’s a good suggestion,” agreed Mr. 
Stickney ; then drawing toward him the 
paper bearing the caption, “Pageant,” he 
added gravely, “This rather scares me. I 
know nothing about pageants except in a 
general way. Isn’t it necessary to know a 
good deal about costumes and lighting and 
acting and dancing? I tell you, Lad, it 
scares me.” 

“There’s where your committee must be 


198 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

wisely selected and set immediately to work. 
The pageant has to be written first. ’ ’ 

‘‘Written I Man alive! What am I in 
for?” Mr. Stickney looked aghast at the idea. 

“No doubt we could find a pageant ready 
made,” admitted Forest, hugely enjoying his 
friend’s amazement; “but I have set my 
heart on an original production, to make it 
more truly a home-town affair. I surmise 
that Faith Mason can help us in this quarter. 
You know that girl’s head is always busy 
with plots and ideas. You don’t have to do 
the work yourself, only see that it is done, 
remember. You can help with the coaching. 
Then for lights, Morton Baker is taking a 
course in stagecraft that ought to unfold all 
the mysteries of lighting that you could pos- 
sibly need. Costumes are a pet hobby with 
Mrs. Porter. The dancing should be dele- 
gated to a professional, of course; so that 
goes to Miss Carter. So there you are! 
Just see that they work together and get the 
results you want.” 

“Quite a four-in-hand you have given into 


A BIG UNDERTAKING 


199 


the hands of a novice!’’ laughed Mr. Stick- 
ney. ‘‘Forest, lad, you are hopelessly and 
incurably enthusiastic!” 

“Not a bit more so than you are, only 
you’re trying to conceal it. Own up now! 
Don’t you think it is a grand ideal” 

“Yes, honestly, I do. Let ’s get what we ’ve 
said on paper.” 

They went to work on the framing of plans, 
jotting down such details as suggested them- 
selves. 

“Do you realize that all this is going to cost 
a considerable amount I Have you thought of 
that!” asked Mr. Stickney. 

“Not such a great deal, as I figure it, be- 
cause we shall expect people to donate their 
services and their materials. We shall need 
some funds, of course, for which we’ll circu- 
late a subscription-paper. Let’s ask Judge 
Crothers to be treasurer.” 

Mr. Stickney passed his hands through his 
hair and tossed it in mock terror. 

“The way you move the men and women 
of this town around is a caution,” he laughed. 


200 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

stretching vigorously, as if to reach the 
stature of courage to which Forest had at- 
tained. 

‘Ht^s only on paper and in the air, at pres- 
ent,^’ Forest reminded him, modestly. “We 
have yet to make the machinery move. ’ ’ 

“We’ll do it. Lad; we’ll do it,” prophesied 
Mr. Stickney, reaching for his hat and pick- 
ing up his papers. “I’m going to start now, 
before I cool off. I see there will be a full 
day’s work every day from now till Christ- 
mas.” 

The prophecy was fulfilled in the next six 
weeks. 

Faith Mason was particularly happy in the 
prospect of writing a pageant. She was tak- 
ing post-graduate work at the high school and 
planning for a college course. She was, as 
Forest had said, always plotting stories and 
plays. 

“I have an outline now that I think will 
work into some such thing. It has been wait- 
ing for the right stimulus. I’ll work it into 
shape and let you see it,” she told Mr. 
Stickney. 


A BIG UNDERTAKING 


201 


Even Judge Crothers fell into step with the 
procession, after a slight hesitation. The 
judge was a silent, cold little man whose in- 
terests seemed to center wholly within him- 
self. No one but Forest would have thought 
of suggesting him as treasurer of the sub- 
scription fund. The idea was preposterous. 
No one but Forest had the courage to offer 
him the post. 

‘‘Me? Ask people for money?’’ queried 
the wizened lips. 

“No, Judge Crothers, we don’t expect you 
to ask for the money. We want you to be 
treasurer and receive the money that comes 
in. We’ll appoint collectors and have them 
report to you, if you’ll be so kind as to keep 
the accounts for us. You’ll do that, won’t 
you?” 

“Yes, yes, I’U do that,” said the judge, 
adding with an unusual show of interest, 
“Tell me again, what is the plan?” 

Forest detailed the plan as far as it had 
been worked out and succeeded in getting an 
honest if not very showy enthusiasnu from the 
judge. 


202 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

Hale took a lively interest in the pageant. 
She was chosen for the important role of 
Peace, and she and Faith had a beautiful 
secret with which to surprise and delight the 
onlookers at the very end of the play. Her 
love of things dramatic and her ardent inten- 
tion of writing plays some day made her look 
upon Faith as one who had attained an en- 
viable height of bliss. 

^‘You’ll do better than that some day, little 
girl,’’ Faith assured her. ‘‘With your ideas, 
I see you will do wonderfully in time. Why ! 
that last business — the secret, you know — 
that’s a big idea and that was all your own, 
you must remember. I wish I could claim 
it.” 

For the time, the Dramatic Club was forced 
into the background and suspended its ses- 
sions by common consent, as its members were 
all involved in the more important under- 
taking. 

Hale would have talked and thought of 
nothing but the pageant, had not Aunt Alice 
wearied of the subject and reminded her of 
more mundane things. But even Aunt Alice 


A BIG UNDERTAKING 


203 


was unusually interested in the big celebra- 
tion, and her executive talents helped to shape 
it to a finished whole. 


CHAPTEE XVII 


PREPARATIONS 

T O persons who have never worked out 
the plan for a Community celebration 
for Christmas, it would be a surprise 
to see how far-reaching the effects are. It 
surprised all the people in Hawthorne not a 
little. 

In the first place, the carol-practice called 
out singers, both young and old, good, indif- 
ferent, and worse, and became more popular 
than the movies. It was well-nigh inspiring 
to hear Tom Folsom, who had led the Baptist 
choir for years upon end, booming out his 
accurate bass for the instruction of the high- 
school boys, who knew practically nothing 
about the old music; it was thrilling to hear 
the sopranos soar up to the heights on the 
wings of Clara Varney’s trained voice. 

Forest never had a more interesting job in 
all his life. His regular music work in the 

204 


PEEPAEATIONS 


205 


school was veered into carol-practice ; so was 
the high-school orchestra work. Anything 
and everything to swell the chorus. 

The pageant work, though less noisy, was 
running deep and strong in its several de- 
partments. To design and cut and make the 
costumes demanded the labor of many fingers. 
It was fairly pathetic to see how some of the 
people who seldom found their talents in de- 
mand rejoiced to be given a share in the 
work. 

In the making and welding of new friend- 
ships between people thus brought together 
lay one of the finest results of the Community 
Christmas idea. Almost every one who had 
any connection with the work found a new 
channel for friendship in one direction or 
another, even to the cold little judge who held 
the funds. 

There were some who sadly needed these 
new friendships. One of these was old 
Auntie Bartlett, who lived close up to the 
edge of the mountain and felt that the life of 
the village would never touch her closely 
again. 


206 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

She was surprised one day to receive a call 
from Faith and Hale on pageant business. 

‘^Do you want to work for the pageant U’ 
asked Faith, after she had explained who she 
was and who Hale was. 

‘^What is that?’’ asked Auntie Bartlett, in 
puzzled alarm, ‘‘not a new kind of disease, 
I hope?” 

“No, indeed, ’ ’ laughed Faith. “ It ’s a play 
for Christmas Eve. We have to have some 
costumes made and we are getting every one 
who can sew a stitch to help make them. 
These are for the angels. I have pinned this 
one together to show you how it goes and I 
have brought you six others to make the same 
way.” 

Auntie Bartlett’s lips trembled, and her 
eyes grew moist with emotion. 

“I’d love to do it,” she managed to say 
and then turned abruptly away to hide her 
happy tears in a search for her thimble. 

“Show me, now, just how it goes,” she 
said, returning. 

Faith held up the soft folds of cheese-cloth 
and showed her where they were pinned. She 


PEEPARATIONS 207 

laid the costume over Haleys shoulders to 
make the explanation clearer. 

‘‘Lovely I cried Auntie Bartlett, standing 
hack with clasped hands. “ I do love to make 
pretty things. And these, you say, are 
angels’ robes. Think of working for the 
angels ! ’ ’ 

The idea quite delighted the lonely old 
woman who had no more tangible companion- 
ship than that of angels for the greater part 
of her days. 

“You must come to town and see the play 
on Christmas Eve, ’ ’ Faith said. ‘ ‘ There will 
be a tree and carol-singing besides. I ’m sure 
you ’ll like it. ’ ’ 

“My stars! I should say I would. But 
how in conscience can I get there ? ’ ’ 

“We’ll find a way. I’m sure it can be 
done.” 

Auntie Bartlett was most grateful for the 
promise. She couldn’t think of letting them 
go without having some of her dainty cakes 
and a cup of hot chocolate to keep the cold at 
bay during their long walk back to the village. 

Hale was surprised, and she learned after- 


208 HALE MEEEILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

ward that Faith was, too, to find such dainty 
china and rich linen in the little mountain cot- 
tage. She later learned from Grandmother 
that Mrs. Bartlett had lived in the village dur- 
ing her husband’s lifetime and had enjoyed a 
comfortable income. Upon his death, she 
had discovered that her resources were rather 
slender and had retired to the remote cottage, 
which was her own from her father ’s estate, 
where she could live quietly and frugally. 
Grandmother owned that the village had 
rather neglected the poor soul, who in her 
younger days had been interested in the 
topics of the day and in the affairs of the 
village. 

Of course, the first visit demanded a second 
one, to get the finished robes; and this one 
Hale made alone. She lingered to chat with 
the lonely woman who could hardly let her 
go even after an hour. 

^Ht’s getting late,” protested Hale, ‘^and 
if it’s dark before I get home. Grandmother 
will worry. ’ ’ 

‘‘To be sure! I know I must let you go. 


PREPAEATIONS 209 

but I do hate to, and thaPs a fact. Do say 
youdl come again.’’ 

“Yes, I’ll come again,” promised Hale; 
“I’d love to after this Christmas rush is over. 
In the meantime, you are coming to see the 
pageant. Mrs. Porter will send her auto up 
to get you and you shall sit in it all snug and 
warm to see the fun. Please don’t disap- 
point us, for I have a lovely surprise at the 
end that I want you to see. ’ ’ 

Auntie Bartlett laughed. 

“I’ll not disappoint you. More’n likely, 
if you were to drop in here at four o ’clock the 
day before Christmas, you’d find me all 
ready, sitting here waiting, sewing, no doubt, 
so’s not to waste a minute, but bobbing up 
every few minutes to look down the road for 
the auto, though I know perfectly well it isn’t 
due till half-past six. You’ve no cause to 
worry about me disappointing you. ’ ’ 

Thus did the ripples from the big idea 
spread into far nooks and comers, and move 
the dull shallows of many a quiet life. 

As for Hale, for the first time in her life 


210 HALE MEERILL’S HONEY QUEST 

she felt herself to he a part of the community 
in which she lived. The lonesomeness of the 
country as she had felt it in early September 
was a fast-fading memory by the middle of 
December. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A COMMUNITY CHKISTMAS 

C HRISTMAS EVE, so eagerly awaited 
and so diligently worked for, was a 
disappointment in one respect. The 
one thing that conld happen to disturb the 
arrangements began to happen about the time 
the tree was lighted. 

All afternoon the weather had received an 
undue share of attention and conversation. 

‘^What if it snows?’’ had been the query 
from mouth to mouth as people met under 
gray skies that had threatened all day. 

“That would be a tragedy, after all our 
preparations.” 

Everywhere it was spoken of as “our prep- 
arations,” and few indeed were the people 
who could not honestly claim a share in them. 
Nothing in Hawthorne had ever been so much 
a town celebration. 

No wonder, then, that in the midst of the 
211 


212 HALE MEERILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

last preparations many anxious eyes should 
turn to the clouds and the united prayer of 
the people should be, hope it wonT snow.’’ 

It did snow, however. The first flakes that 
starred the dark overcoats in the crowd 
brought forth a dismal groan, which was so 
spontaneous and yet in unison that it was 
immediately succeeded by a laugh quite as 
united and spontaneous. The atmosphere 
being thus cleared of ill feeling, the people 
began to think it was rather nice than other- 
wise to have this natural addition to the stage 
setting. 

The crowd on the common was an interest- 
ing factor of the occasion. To Forest, who 
stood with Mr. Stickney in a wing of the tem- 
porary stage, it was the most interesting fea- 
ture of the celebration. 

‘‘That’s what I’ve been working for all 
these weeks,” he told the principal. “Just 
to see a crowd like that gathered to enjoy 
something beautiful together is worth all the 
time and effort of the work. I hope we have 
our carols in hand. It would be dreadful to 
disappoint that crowd.” 


A COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS 213 


‘ ‘ They are a pretty happy-looking crowd, ’ ^ 
commented Mr. Stickney; ‘‘I donT know 
who’s happier, the ones who do the work or 
the ones who witness the results. ’ ’ 

‘‘Well, I do!” declared Forest. “I know 
I am a lot happier than some one who has 
just come to look on. I’ve seen the work 
develop and had a hand in it. There’s no 
question in my mind, nor in yours, either, I 
feel sure.” 

Faith joined them a moment. 

“Joe is turning on the lights in just a min- 
ute,” she said. “Are you ready for the 
orchestra?” 

“The minute the tree is lighted I’ll be 
ready for the orchestra. There it goes!” 
Forest vanished down the steps. 

The tree blossomed out into a hundred 
gleaming points, and the crowd gave forth a 
cheer followed by prolonged applause. The 
moment it died away. Forest, in a little pen 
close under the edge of the stage, lifted his 
baton and sent the orchestra crashing into the 
Hallelujah Chorus. 

The crowd, being thus called to attention. 


214 HALE MEREILL HONEY QUEST 

turned toward the stage and drew close for 
the carol-singing. Massed close to the pen 
was the faithful chorus that had studied these 
six weeks and knew the carols best. Out in 
the main circle of the throng the boys had 
been passing slips with the printed stanzas. 
When the orchestra had finished their selec- 
tion, Mr. Stickney made some announcements, 
giving a return of thanks to all who had co- 
operated to make the celebration a success, 
and closing with the request that all join in 
the singing. 

The program opened with ‘^Silent Night.’’ 
The trained choir close to the orchestra and 
to Forest’s baton gave a good body of sound 
for the less confident to cling to. If it wasn’t 
everybody’s celebration before, it now became 
so. Those who thought they couldn’t sing 
hummed a little, sure of escaping attention in 
the volume of sound. 

When the carol program had been com- 
pleted, there was only a momentary delay be- 
fore the pageant was opened by a shepherd 
strolling in with a dog. Presently three or 
four others followed and seated themselves 


A COMMUNITY CHEISTMAS 215 


beside the first upon the ground. The or- 
chestra, playing softly, dreamily, supple- 
mented the action as the shepherds, folding 
their rough coats about them, lay down to 
sleep and left the dogs on watch. Gradually 
the stage grew dim. 

Presently a light shone brightly in upon 
the group of shepherds, arousing them one 
by one, and music coming softly from far 
away grew more distinct as it drew near. 
The light which shone upon them, making 
them afraid, was seen to take form as an 
angel. The transformation was produced by 
a clever manipulation of lights and was con- 
sidered by the young people as a triumph of 
stage art. It was only one of the many sur- 
prising contributions that the lanky Morton 
Baker had submitted as his part of the prep- 
arations. 

‘‘It goes to show,^’ Forest had declared in 
jubilation, “that in a town like this there is 
some one to tell you how to do anything you 
happen to want, if you can only find him.” 

Miss Blair made a beautiful angel and 
spoke her lines with clear precision. 


216 HALE MEERILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

‘‘Fear not!’’ 

The hush of the audience deepened as she 
went on to tell what had happened in Bethle- 
hem and where the Babe would be found. As 
soon as the annunciation was finished, the 
angel host came into view, flooding the air 
with melody. ‘ ‘ Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace, good will toward men.” 

The words and action followed closely the 
Gospel narrative. As the shepherds pre- 
pared to “go even unto Bethlehem,” the 
lights were dimmed to total darkness. When 
next they appeared, it was to light the rude 
stable scene which had been ready and wait- 
ing behind the drop. 

The manger scene was wholly pantomime, 
except that the baby, wakened from a nap by 
the moist kisses of one of the dogs, gave a 
startled cry and then subsided under the 
soothing reassurance of its mother. 

A period of darkness followed the visit of 
the shepherds. When the light came again, 
it came as a daybreak, slowly, and through 
the open doorway, where lately the shepherds 
had taken their departure, were now seen 


A COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS 217 


approaching the Wise Men from the East. 
They bowed before the infant King and pre- 
sented their gifts, which the Madonna ac- 
cepted graciously on her son^s behalf. The 
first act ended with the departure of the Wise 
Men. 

The throng on the common gave a generous 
measure of applause, both vocal and manual. 
Forest, standing ready with uplifted baton, 
started the orchestra into another round of 
carols while the stage hands worked with a 
fair degree of speed to prepare for the second 
act. 

Hale came to help Faith with the decora- 
tions. 

‘‘You ought to be the proudest girl in the 
world. Faith. 

“I am,’’ confessed Faith over a mouthful 
of pins with which she was fastening up 
sprigs of holly. “Hold that right there a 
minute. Didn’t Miss Blair look every inch 
an angel ! And wasn’t it darling of the baby 
to cry that way ! It showed he was alive and 
the people liked it.” 

“They liked all of it,” agreed Hale. 


218 HALE MEREILL HONEY QUEST 

‘ ‘ They ’ll love what you are going to do the 
last thing best of all. What are they laugh- 
ing at out there f Ask Joe. ” 

“Santa Claus has been out in full regalia 
to sweep the snow off the platform so the 
dancers won’t slip in it,” said Joe Pratt, 
coming in to see if they were about ready to 
have the lights turned on. 

‘ ‘ This part is all ready, ’ ’ said Faith, stand- 
ing back to get the effect of her decorations. 
“How about the outside scene?” 

“All ready and waiting,” said Joe. 
“Keep back there, youngsters; don’t let your 
heads show till it ’s time. ’ ’ 

Stepping over the numerous small-fry in 
his path, Joe turned on the lights and sig- 
naled to the curtain man. 

The outside scene showed a poorly fur- 
nished attic room in which a woman sat sew- 
ing a billowy mass of white tarlatan. Her 
six hungry-looking children were making 
what fun they could out of a broken doll and 
a ragged picture-book. 

Presently the dress was finished and the 
woman shook it out and held it up for inspec- 


A COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS 219 


tion. The children left their play and clus- 
tered around. One little girl begged leave 
to try on the dress. The mother yielded to 
her own and the child ^s desire and slipped 
the dress over her head. All stood about in 
admiration. 

^‘Sing ‘Money Musk/ ’’ begged the child. 

The mother sang with full support from the 
orchestra and the child danced beautifully 
while the others gaped and admired. 

The dance ended, the dress was taken off 
and folded into a box to be sent to its rightful 
owner. Two of the children were sent to de- 
liver it. 

The poor family disappeared from the 
scene as the drop was lifted to show the 
Christmas festivities of a wealthy family. A 
father and mother and child were grouped 
about a Christmas-tree from which the gifts 
had been stripped. The little girl was cross 
and fretful after the excitement of the day. 
Her toys pleased her for only a moment and 
she even expressed displeasure with some of 
them. 

Into this group came the poor children 


220 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

bringing the tarlatan frock. When the 
mother shook it out and examined it, the little 
girl left her toys to give attention to the new 
attraction. Left to themselves while the 
family was intent upon the dress, the two 
little starvelings drew near to the discarded 
toys and ventured to pick up one or two. 
They were discovered and accused of med- 
dling. 

The children shrank in fear from their ac- 
cusers and retreated toward the door. Then, 
mindful of their mother ^s instruction, they 
asked for the money due on the dress. 

The wealthy father investigated his purse. 
His bank notes were all too big to pay the 
small amount. They would have to come 
again or he could send it to-morrow when the 
banks were open. The timid murmur of 
‘ ^ She needs the money, ’ ’ was overpowered by 
the careless statement, ‘‘She’ll have it to- 
morrow, I tell you.” So the children de- 
parted without the money amid the disgusted 
expressions of the group regarding the ava- 
rice of poor people. 

The drop, coming into use, showed the poor 


A COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS 221 


room again, to which the children returned, 
sorrowful and hungry. Their mother asked 
for the money, but it was not forthcoming, 
and she could merely set out for their Christ- 
mas dinner part of a loaf of bread which she 
divided equally among them. She lightened 
the unhappy atmosphere with a story of 
make-believe, through which the children saw 
their plain dry bread as delectable cake which 
needed no butter, and their simple glass of 
water as rich milk that makes boys and girls 
grow stout and strong. 

Then they gathered round her knee for the 
Christmas story of long ago, in which the 
weight of emphasis was placed upon the hum- 
ble beginning of the life of the Prince of 
Peace. 

‘^We have peace, my children, in knowing 
that we have not been unkind to each other or 
to any fellow creature, and in knowing that 
God loves us and cares for us» If we have 
not much food to-day, we shall have more to- 
morrow, and until then we shall not suffer. ’ ’ 

When the children, in answer, urged their 
claim that all children should have Christmas 


222 HALE MEREILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

presents, she replied that presents do not 
make children happy, recalling to their minds 
the fretful child whose toys they saw scat- 
tered and neglected at the foot of the tree. 

‘Ht is the kind mind that gives peace, my 
children. It matters not whether the person 
has all bodily comforts or few blessings that 
he can measure and count, if he has good 
will toward men he is at peace, and therefore 
rich. ’ ’ 

The curtain descending to shut out the lit- 
tle group reminded the attentive audience 
that the place was Hawthorne and not the 
cheerless slum of a great city, that the good 
will which had inspired the Community 
Christmas had made it impossible for a single 
child in all Hawthorne to go hungry to bed, at 
least on Christmas Day. They, therefore, 
wiped their misty eyes, swallowed the lumps 
in their throats, and, beating the snow from 
their shoulders and breasts, sighed with re- 
lief and awaited the third act, meanwhile 
singing the carols. 

The last act was Faith ^s favorite, the act 


A COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS 223 

in which she had let her imagination take full 
flight. 

The scene was laid in the realm of Peace, 
whose chief attendants are Power and Plenty. 

Plenty, in the familiar guise of Santa 
Claus, sent out a call for the tribes o-f men to 
come and be blessed with gifts. While wait- 
ing their arrival, the virtues, four-and- twenty 
little fairies, danced before the throne, led by 
their sovereign. Peace. 

At the end of their dance the first arrival 
appeared, a woman garbed in the conven- 
tional Grecian robe of white, which under the 
careful manipulation of a spotlight appeared 
tinged with blue. A dark veil, bandaging 
her eyes, made her grope for progress, while 
an impish little figure of Brownie aspect, rep- 
resenting her pet vice or vanity, still further 
hindered her steps by clinging to her and 
dragging her out of her course. 

Upon her arrival before the throne, the 
lusty youth named Power made haste to break 
the spell of her vice, — that is, he resolutely 
removed the impish figure and bore it strug- 


224 HALE MEREILL HONEY QUEST 

gling away to a spot where he laid it down 
upon the floor and, by a momentary pressure 
of his foot upon its chest, signified that it was 
vanquished. 

At the same time. Plenty removed the veil 
bandage and called to him one of the virtues 
which he presented to the woman. The 
woman, now clothed in white, looked up and 
smiled about her as she received the gift. 

The procession of vice-hindered mortals 
passed slowly before the gift-giver. From 
each a vice was taken away and a virtue given 
in exchange, till the happy white-robed com- 
pany stood massed beside the throne sur- 
rounded by a solid wall of virtues. Then the 
vices made one last attempt to reclaim their 
former victims. Simultaneously they rose to 
a sitting position and blinked about them as if 
to inquire what had happened. Seeing their 
erstwhile slaves so safely protected by the 
virtues, they looked impishly at one another 
for encouragement, scrambled to their feet 
and, by means of grotesque maneuvers, made 
repeated attacks against the virtues. These 


A COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS 225 


were repeatedly repulsed by the quietly cour< 
ageous virtues, till Peace, stepping calmly 
into their midst, scattered the vices and com- 
pleted their downfall. 

Stepping then to the center front of the 
stage, Hale had her great moment, the big 
surprise of the evening. The group of mor- 
tals formed a crescent behind her while she 
recited the closing lines. Honor to herself 
was the least consideration in Hale’s mind. 
The words were Faith’s, and out of love for 
her friend. Hale meant they should ring out 
at their best. 

‘ ‘ Oh, list then ! ye mortals who struggle for Peace 
And think ye shall find it in fortune ’s increase ! 
Not larger possessions shall answer your need, 

Not bounty; but kindness in word and in deed. 
Think not to find Peace while your neighbor has 
none; 

His welfare and yours grow together as one. 

When Virtue has triumphed all sorrow shall cease. 
For Virtue is Good Will, and Good Will is Peace.” 

Raising her. hands in a benediction as she 
spoke the last line. Hale released the secret 
which had been hers and Faith’s all these 


226 HALE MEEEILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

weeks. She listened for the gasp of delight 
she was sure would come, and smiled in con- 
tentment to hear it. 

From either hand a pure white pigeon cir- 
cled away through the night and the fast- 
falling flakes. It was the crowning touch of 
loveliness. Hale could have wept with emo- 
tion at the thrill that passed through the 
audience. 

Other people had surprises, it seemed, for 
as Faith and Hale stood congratulating each 
other with misty eyes and smiling lips, Mr. 
Stickney found them. 

“Faith, I^m proud of you,’’ he said, shak- 
ing her hand and drawing it through his 
arm. “I have a publisher for your play. 
Mr. Wilmer, of Black & Wilmer, is here at my 
suggestion and he wants to meet you and he 
wants to buy your play.” 

The news that Faith had sold the play for 
publication swept through the crowd and for 
a while delayed the progress of the schedule. 
The groups of carolers forgot their assign- 
ment to certain spots and rushed pell-mell at 
Faith to hear all about it. She was the center 



Kaising her hands in a benediction, Hale released the secret 

Page 225. 




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II 




A COMMUNITY CHEISTMAS 227 

of a noisy, happy group all trying to tell her 
how glad they were. Mr. Wihner on one side 
and Mr. Stickney on the other saved her from 
the worst of the jam, bowing and smiling as 
if the congratulations were theirs as well as 
Faith’s. 

At last, Mr. Stickney took command of the 
situation. 

“All to your places!” he said, raising his 
hand. 

The carolers dispersed to their various 
conveyances and went their separate ways. 
All Hawthorne was alive with song. Along 
the snowy roads the torch-lit groups went 
singing from house to house where aged or 
infirm people were shut away from all other 
parts of the community celebration. 

Grandmother Merrill was waiting up for 
Hale when she returned about midnight, with 
Forest to see her safely home. 

“You look as if you had had a good time,” 
commented Grandmother, rejoicing in Hale’s 
bright eyes and rosy cheeks. 

“I have. Grandmother; the best time I ever 
had in my life. I feel as if I love everybody 


228 HALE MEREILL HONEY QUEST 

in this town whether I know them or not.^’ 

Grandmother smiled understanding^ as 
she kissed Forest good-night. 

^^Not a bad feeling to create in one little 
girl/’ she told him, ‘‘and I suppose it is safe 
to say that a great many others have known 
the feeling to-night. I’m glad to remember 
that you are the original cause of it all, dear 
boy. ’ ’ 

“I don’t want anybody to remember that,” 
declared Forest, “for it couldn’t have hap- 
pened without the cooperation of everybody, 
you know. Think how Hale helped, for ex- 
ample. ’ ’ 

“Hale certainly did her part well,” spoke 
up Aunt Alice. 

Hale was so astonished by this gracious 
admission that she almost forgot to be gra- 
cious in return. She betrayed her surprise, 
then murmured a tardy “Thank you.” 

“How unusual for Aunt Alice to speak like 
that,” she mused, drowsily, as she went up- 
stairs and prepared for bed. 


CHAPTER XIX 


BOOK MONEY 


FTER seasons of virtue and self- 



satisfaction, people are apt to suffer 


a slump of one kind or another. 


The reason is not far to seek, for such seasons 
usually involve the neglect of less interesting 
phases of life. 

The Christmas season was hardly over 
when Hale experienced such a slump. She 
came down to earth with a thud that startled 
her and set her to thinking about her short- 
comings with more profit than pleasure. 

She had known, in a way, that her music 
was being neglected, but she found it easy to 
push it aside for the more interesting pageant 
work. Forest, however, was not content with 
the results. He was, as he had warned her, 
a very critical teacher. He could not tolerate 
careless work. 

One day he listened as Hale played her 


229 


230 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

lesson for him in a spiritless way, repeating 
mistakes to which he had called her attention 
in a previous lesson. Then he broke in upon 
the humdrum with a distressed, ‘^Wait.’^ 

Hale looked up and waited. 

‘‘What are you hoping to accomplish by 
taking music lessons T’ he asked her. 

“I don’t know,” shrugged Hale, “unless 
it is to learn to play for my own amusement. 
I don’t expect ever to he a great artist.” 

“Do you care for good music?” he asked, 
still looking her through and through with 
his serious gaze. * 

“Of course, when some one plays it who 
knows how.” 

“Then how can you he content to blunder 
along and make such poor music all the 
time!” 

“I’m not content,” declared Hale. “It 
gives me no satisfaction whatever. I haven’t 
any talent for it, anyway. I wouldn’t care if 
I gave it up and never took another lesson.” 

Forest shook his head and sunk his clenched 
fists deeper into his coat pockets. To tell the 
truth, he wanted to take Hale by the shoulders 


BOOK MONEY 


231 


and shake her till she begged for mercy. 
How could any one sit there and strum out 
notes as if both heart and hand were lifeless 
wood! 

His steady gaze alarmed Hale. She moved 
uneasily on the bench and, with a desire to 
break the silence, began to finger a key or 
two. 

^^Stop!^’ ordered Forest. ^^Now listen! 
You go at this work as if you were going to 
the gallows. IFs all wrong. You say you 
have no special talent, and you think that’s 
excuse enough for killing time, just going 
through the motions. Any one who can learn 
to read print can learn to read music; and 
you could do better if you cared to make the 
effort.” 

Hale had never seen her cousin roused like 
this. It was in her thought to promise better 
effort, but Forest went on rapidly. 

‘Ht’s no use for me to sit and try to listen 
to such murderous playing. I can’t do it! 
You have said you would like to give up the 
lessons. I’m going to give you time to think 
that over. You know when a lesson is ready 


232 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

for me, and when it is Vll come and hear it. 
Till then, I Ve something better to occupy my 
time.’’ 

He was gone before she could answer. 

“Take your old dishes and go ’long. No- 
body wants them, ’ ’ she said under her breath. 

Forest went straight to his Grandmother. 

“I’ve been telling Hale a few plain facts,” 
he told her, his indignation still glowing warm 
beneath his self-control. “I have not lost my 
temper,” he added, in answer to her search- 
ing gaze. “This thing has been growing 
more and more unbearable for weeks. I have 
told her that I shall hear her lesson again 
when she is sure it’s ready. She knows she 
isn ’t half trying. ’ ’ 

Grandmother Merrill knew that before now 
Forest had given up pupils for this very rea- 
son. She understood his passion for thor- 
oughness, and she knew enough of Hale ’s na- 
ture to see where the trouble lay. 

“May I say something to Hale about this ? ’ ’ 
she asked. 

“I’d be glad if you would,” he said. 

So Grandmother had a little talk with Hale 


BOOK MONEY 233 

“Forest tells me he cut your lesson short 
to-day/’ she began. 

“Yes,” said Hale gloomily. 

“Are you disappointing him, Hale?” 

“Well, dear me! he expects so much! I 
can’t play everything perfectly the first time 
I try and he seems to think I ought to.” 

“Did he say that?” 

“No-o, not exactly, but he said I could do 
better if I wanted to.” 

“And could you?” 

“I suppose so !” 

“I am sorry to hear you say that,” sighed 
Grandmother, shaking her head, “for it con- 
firms me in a very unwelcome conclusion I 
have reached in regard to you. On second 
thought, I am not going to call it a conclusion, 
only a half-way station, for I don’t believe 
you will be willing to leave it that way. ’ ’ 

“What?” asked Hale, really concerned at 
the serious tone Grandmother used. 

“I find that you are apt to do very well 
the things that you find easy to do — such as 
reading and play-acting, let us say — and you 
are content to do only fairly well the things 


234 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

you have to work a little harder for, — such 
as your music.’’ 

“Is a person supposed to do everything 
equally well I” asked Hale in self-defense. 

“No, I don’t say that; what I say is that 
everything you attempt to do ought to re- 
ceive your best effort. Because you put your 
whole heart into your reading, you excel in 
it. It is the lack of heart in your music that 
makes it a disappointment to Forest. You 
spend the required amount of time at the 
piano, at least your body is there, but your 
thoughts wander. Your fingers will never 
learn to do their part unless your mind stays 
right behind them to make them intelligent. ’ ’ 

‘ ^ 0 dear ! Why can’t we do just the things 
we like to do, and let the rest go!” pouted 
Hale. 

“We should be too one-sided, if we did 
that. You haven’t yet thought much about 
building a character for yourself, but T be- 
lieve you ought to begin at once. Tackle your 
music with the idea of mastering every exer- 
cise as far as you go, and the result will be 
better music-lessons and a better mind.” 


BOOK MONEY 


235 


Hale said very little at the time, and Grand- 
mother was satisfied to let the matter rest 
without a definite promise from her. The 
girPs pride had been sharply prodded, how- 
ever, and she dwelt seriously on the insinua- 
tion that she shirked difficult tasks. 

To prove to herself that she didnT, she did 
a week of faithful work and on Tuesday night 
called Forest by telephone to say she was 
ready for her lesson next day. 

Her reward was in his hearty praise, and 
from that time there was more pleasure for 
both of them in the lessons. Hale even sus- 
pected him of giving her difficult passages 
just to test her pluck, and this gave a zest to 
the work that was quite unknown to the 
earlier lessons. 

‘H^d like to hear you play that again,’’ he 
said at the close of that first satisfactory les- 
son, ‘‘but time is up, and I have to go and 
hunt up a boy to pump for me while I prac- 
tise at the church organ. It is the hardest 
thing to find a boy who, even for the consider- 
ation of twenty cents an hour, will stick to the 
job week in and week out.” 


236 HALE MEREILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

Hale, who always had in the back of her 
thoughts the burden of her book money, 
grasped at this floating straw. 

‘‘Twenty cents an hourU’ she repeated. 
“You wouldnT hire me for the job, would 
you r ’ 

“What do you want a hard job like that 
forU’ 

“I need the money. You know about my 
books, don ^t you ? ’ ^ 

Forest didnT know, so she fold him the 
heart-breaking news of her folly and its 
penalty. Forest apologized for laughing at 
the predicament she was in. 

“Is the pumping too hard for my amount 
of muscle she asked, bending her arm to 
lump her modest showing. “I think I made 
a little muscle rowing.^’ 

“It isn’t the strength required, but the 
patience, I was thinking of. It’s not a very 
interesting job.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, but the money ! ’ ’ cried Hale tragically. 
“Think of the money! Wouldn’t I gladly be 
bored to death at the rate of twenty cents an 
hour, to get those beastly books paid fori” 


BOOK MONEY 


237 


So the bargain was made and Hale had the 
pleasure of collecting slowly the coins that 
were to cover her first business transaction. 
The pleasure lay chiefiy in the money end of 
it, for she found the job not only uninterest- 
ing but hot and tiresome. She learned much, 
incidentally, about the art of practising, for 
Forest was patience itself on the bench. 
Over and over he played one single passage 
till it satisfied him. 

‘^That makes fifty times said Hale, 
fiercely, one afternoon when her cousin had 
run long past the allotted hour and become 
absorbed in a pedal passage of unusual diffi- 
culty. ^^How can he forget supper and 
everything ! ’ ’ 

‘‘That^s all for this time, Hale,’^ he called. 

We ^11 go home now.’’ 

Hale was otherwise minded. She came 
out of her stuffy little pocket of a pump-room 
with her courage screwed up to ask what had 
been brewing in her mind for a long time. 
She was flushed and breathless, which made 
Forest feel condemned. 

ought not to keep you so long,” he said, 


238 HALE MEEEILL HONEY QUEST 

contritely, ‘‘but I get interested and forget 
about you.” 

“ThaUs all right,” panted Hale. “The 
more time the more money, but I wish you 
would do something for me. When you have 
been playing one thing over and over for a 
hundred times or so, I go home with my head 
full of it, and whatever I try to do in the 
evening has to go to the tune of tum-diddle- 
dum-diddle-du-du-la-du, or whatever the old 
thing said last. I wish you’d play one glori- 
ous smash-banging march or anthem, or 
something, after your practising is done, just 
to get the jimmy-wiggles out of my ears. 
You needn’t pay for the time it takes, if 
you’ll only do it.” 

How Forest laughed at her puckered dis- 
tress. 

“You poor youngster!” he said, sympa- 
thetically, ‘ ‘ I should say I will. Why haven ’t 
you asked me before?” 

“I didn’t have the courage. If you hadn’t 
played that awful bass thing exactly fifty 
times, I might not have dared yet,” she con- 
fessed. 


BOOK MONEY 


239 


After that, they never stopped work with- 
out a thrilling ‘ ^ smash-hanger ’ ’ to which Hale 
could look forward through the tedious hours 
of pumping. 

Meantime, quite unknown to herself, a little 
plan was under discussion that was to throw 
a new light on her financial troubles. 


CHAPTER XX 


A MODERN MOTHER GOOSE 

O NE afternoon in January, Hale came 
racing up the hill from school and 
burst in upon Grandmother’s quiet 
meditations between the dark and the day- 
light. She threw her bag down on the couch 
and danced a wild fandango around the center 
table. Her cheeks were like roses, her eyes 
glowing with happiness, which made Grand- 
mother’s face light up with pleasure to see. 

‘ ‘ Oh, Grandmother darling, ’ ’ she gasped at 
last, dropping to the floor where she could 
snuggle close to the dear lady’s knee; ‘‘what 
do you suppose has happened to me ! Some- 
thing gorgeous! You’d never guess!” 

“You have succeeded in learning how to do 
square root,” guessed Grandmother, with a 
twinkle. 

Hale settled back and gave her Grand- 
mother a pleading look of offended dignity. 
240 


A MODERN MOTHER GOOSE 241 

‘^Please don’t tease me now,” she begged. 
‘ ^ There ’s no hope of such a thing as that, — 
ever. This is something I shall love to do. 
Listen! Mr. Stickney called me up to the 
office to-day and asked me if I would be will- 
ing to help him try an experiment. He is one 
of the library trustees and he has a scheme 
for getting a group of children, little ones, 
he means, first-graders and second, to come 
to the library Saturday mornings for story- 
telling. Now do you see! He wants me to 
tell the stories. ” 

^^Do you think you can do it well enough to 
keep little children quiet and interested?” 

‘^Do it! I know I can. He took me down 
to the first-grade room and let me tell the 
story of the hare and the tortoise, to try me 
out. Little lady Grandmother, it was grand ! 
Those babies listened to every word and when 
the bunny went to sleep to wait for the tor- 
toise to catch up, the darlings did exactly 
what I did, like this,” explained Hale, tuck- 
ing her clasped hands under her left ear and 
tipping her head over against them with her 
eyes shut. 


242 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

‘^Mr. Stickney thinks I can do it nicely; 
anyway, he wants me to try. I shall begin 
Saturday morning with two groups, the first 
at nine o ’clock for half an hour, and the sec- 
ond at quarter of ten for half an hour. Won ’t 
it be great ! ’ ’ 

‘Ht sounds very delightful,” agreed Grand- 
mother. 

Still I haven’t told you one of the nicest 
things about it,” Hale went on; ‘H am to be 
paid for it, one dollar a Saturday. If I can 
do it well and the children care to come they 
will continue it for fifteen weeks. Think of 
it, fifteen dollars! That will be a good lift 
on the books, won’t it?” 

‘ ‘ Splendid I ’ ’ 

‘^But listen. Grandmother! I’ve thought 
of the nicest plan. Don’t you think it would 
be grand if I were to be dressed like Mother 
Goose while telling the stories?” 

‘‘Yes, I think it would,” said Grandmother 
with a quick little breath, as if she had just 
thought of something. 

“Well?” prompted Hale. “What is it?” 

“Little mind-reader!” laughed Grand- 


A MODERN MOTHER GOOSE 243 


motlier, pincliing her cheek. thought of a 
certain old camphor-chest up in the attic that 
may possibly have such a costume as you 
want. I am sure I saw one when I looked 
that chest over for the Christmas costumes.’’ 

^^Could— ” 

Yes, we’ll go right this minute and get it.” 

It is the finest thing in the world to have 
a grandmother who can sympathize. Hale 
knew certain people, not a hundred miles 
away, who would have made you wait till next 
day, and would then have gone alone to the 
wonderful chest to find the dress. 

When the costume was found it proved to 
be the very thing Hale wanted, and with a 
few simple alterations could be made to fit 
her suitably. 

shall make out my list of stories now 
and practise every day so I shall have them 
all fresh and ready,” she announced with an 
air of importance. 

Where will you find stories enough to last 
all those weeks?” asked Grandmother, doubt- 
fully. 

have a lot in my head right now,” Hale 


244 HALE MEREILL’S HONEY QUEST 

told her. Mother and Miss Dwight have 
told me hundreds and I can remember lots of 
them word for word. Then Miss Colburn 
will give me books to learn others and I shall 
study them till I can tell them. Oh, say! 
WouldnT Delia know some Irish stories, some 
that aren T in books 1 I ^m going to ask her. ’ ’ 

Aunt Alice, when informed of this inten- 
tion, shook her head in caution. 

‘^All very well,’’ she said, ‘Uf you can do it 
without interfering with Delia ’s work. ’ ’ 
will be sure of that,” promised Hale. 

‘^And you are not to neglect your music for 
this new fad. ’ ’ 

‘‘No, Aunt Alice.” 

Hale was blithe enough to promise any- 
thing and to shed any amount of cold water 
that might be thrown on the plan. 

That very night, after supper, she followed 
Delia into the kitchen. 

“Delia, I’m going to help with the dishes, 
for I want you to get through early,” she 
announced. 

“Well, did I ever!” ejaculated Delia. 


A MODERN MOTHER GOOSE 245 


‘ ^ Whatever could it matter to you when I get 
through the workT’ 

“I want you to teach me something/^ said 
Hale. 

‘ ‘ Listen to the girl ! What do I know that 
you^d be wantin’ to learn?” 

‘H’ll tell you when the work is all done, so 
you surely won’t be neglecting anything Aunt 
Alice has told you to do.” 

‘‘Whatever — ” was as far as Delia could 
get in her amazement. 

“Now then,” began Hale, when the kitchen 
was tidy, and the dish^owels rinsed, and the 
grapefruit prepared for breakfast, and the 
bread set to rise, and the lima beans put soak- 
ing for to-morrow’s dinner, and the kindlings 
laid ready for the morning fire; “I want you 
to tell me an Irish story ; something that was 
told you when you were a little bit of a girl. ’ ’ 

“Whatever!” gasped Delia, dropping into 
a chair and regarding Hale with a frightened 
stare. 

“Yes, I mean it,” laughed Hale. “You 
can go on with your crochet-work while you 


246 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

tell me; but first I’ll tell you wbat I want it 
for. ’ ’ 

Delia had never in her life heard of any one 
being paid to tell stories, except as the com- 
fortable peasants in her old country might 
now and then drop a penny into the hat of a 
poor old beggar who told a tale to earn a bite 
of bread. 

When Hale finally succeeded in making 
Delia believe that she was in earnest, she 
still had the difficult task of persuading her 
that the children would be interested in Irish 
tales. Delia laughed the idea to scorn, 
though she was all the while casting about in 
her mind for a story to tell, while the flash 
of her crochet-hook was keen and rapid 
among her stitches. 

‘‘I might tell the story of the Little Rid 
Hin,” she suggested. 

Though Hale had often enough heard the 
story of the Little Red Hen, her quick ear 
caught the new pronunciation and she won- 
dered if by listening carefully she might learn 
the trick of i for e, and many another with 
which Delia’s words were flavored. 


A MODERN MOTHER GOOSE 247 


‘‘All right/’ she agreed, “tell that.” 

That was only the beginning. Delia resur- 
rected, from time to time, a great many 
stories she hadn’t thought of for years; and 
enjoyed the telling of them, too. Hale caught 
the knack of the brogue remarkably well. 

Aunt Alice thought it was all nonsense to 
try to entertain children with common serv- 
ant-girl stories unless they were smoothed 
up and turned into better English; but Hale 
pinned her faith on the charm of the stories 
just as they were, and was delighted to hear 
the first-graders laugh over the funny words 
and the funny faces she put with them. 

The story-hours were Hale’s happiest 
hours. There was always some older person 
present to be sure of the discipline. Mr. 
Stickney was constantly dropping in on one 
excuse or another and there were sometimes 
other visitors, though Hale paid little atten- 
tion to their coming and going. The children 
had her attention and she had theirs. 

“And the wolf said, ‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll 
puff and I’ll blow your house in!’ ” she told 
them for the dozenth time, and immediately 


248 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

all the youngsters opened their big round 
eyes and huffed and puffed with all their 
might. 

‘‘They want the same story over nearly 
every week, and I think they like it all the 
better because I let them do the things with 
me,” she told Grandmother. 

Altogether the story hours were a great 
success, and Hale felt very glad to be satisfy- 
ing Mr. Stickney’s expectations. More than 
that, she was very happy to be paying a dollar 
a week on the debt to Aunt Alice for the books. 

The answer from her father in regard to 
their money matters was suggestive rather 
than definite. He had said, “We are not 
exactly paupers, though our ready money is 
scarce; our prospects are fairly good, but 
just now we mustn’t indulge in luxuries.” 

Hale was glad she had been prevented from 
asking him for the book money. Thirty-eight 
dollars! What would he have thought? 
Certainly thirty-eight dollars looked bigger 
to Hale than it ever had before she tried to 
earn it. 

So by degrees the story-telling money 


A MODERN MOTHER GOOSE 249 


added to the organ-pumping money completed 
the payments, and Hale felt rather proud than 
otherwise of her smart row of hooks. It was 
always a proud moment when she could use 
their contents to piece out school or family 
discussions of historical events. 

It was after they were paid for that she told 
the story of their purchase to her father in a 
letter which contained another piece of in- 
formation which interested him even more. 
But of that later. 


CHAPTEE XXI 


hale’s blizzaed 

I T is a popular conundrum, never fully 
answered, as to which season of the year 
is the most enjoyable. 

To Hale, hitherto, the snowy season had 
meant that she less often could venture out 
for her quiet walks with Miss Dwight. She 
never had cared much, because the inside of 
the house was much more attractive with its 
warmth and quiet amusements. She could 
see about all of winter that she wanted to see 
through the windows. Her first winter in 
Hawthorne was to be a new kind of winter. 

She could not romp through the bright 
sharp days of autumn without learning to love 
the cool freshness of the big outdoors. As 
winter approached and Eoy began to sniff the 
air for snow and foretell the wonderful times 
they could have. Hale found herself looking 
eagerly forward to the sports he described. 

250 


HALEYS BLIZZARD 


251 


When the snow and ice made the new sports 
possible, she was one of their most enthu- 
siastic devotees. 

The Hawthorne young people made much 
of winter sports. They were not content 
that each family should coast in the seclusion 
of its own back yard. That was merely slid- 
ing down hill. Every one must get together, 
round up all the double-runners in the town, 
(they knew who had them) and make a real 
party of coasting. 

After school till dark, on Saturdays every 
hour they could beg or steal from home 
duties, and on moonlight nights, the hill was 
the place to look for any desired person, if 
the snow was deep and well-packed. If the 
snow was poor and the ice was good, the 
population swung to the pond. 

Hale knew nothing about skating, but she 
found a pair of skates among her Christmas 
presents and became Roy^s pupil as soon as 
the pond was considered safe. Such lessons 
and such laughing I Such lameness and such 
determined effort in spite of it I 

It was all very well when Roy on one side 


254 HALE MEEEILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

end of half an hour she telephoned to the 
library. Hale was not there. Calling Ma- 
rion Shedd and Edith Hatch and Beatrice 
Philips proved equally futile; none of them 
had heard the missing girl say a word about 
her plans. 

The hopelessness of locating a lost person 
without the help of a town crier was baffling 
to Miss Merrill. If only one knew which way 
to turn. Then a clue came by telephone from 
Marion Shedd. She had been casting about 
for some one who knew about Hale, and had 
learned from one of the mountain children 
that Hale had ridden on the school pung up 
to Mrs. Bartlett’s. 

‘ ‘ Such a night to take that notion into her 
head,” complained Miss Merrill, as she hung 
up the receiver. She was annoyed. A 
scrutiny of the thickening storm brought her 
anxiety to the fore and she took counsel with 
her mother. 

think I shall send Michael out to meet 
her,” she said. ‘Ht is getting thicker and 
rougher momentarily. Of course, Mrs. Bart- 
lett will send the child home at once, but she 


HALEYS BLIZZARD 255 

may get exhausted and be glad of MichaePs 
assistance.’’ 

Michael was alarmed to learn that Hale was 
out in the storm. He hastily bundled him- 
self into his coat and scarf while Delia 
warmed his mittens and cautioned him to pull 
his ear-muffs well about his ears. Miss Mer- 
rill loaned him her electric flashlight, and he 
set out on his rough trip. 

He well knew the road to the mountain. It 
was the same over which he had drawn Mrs. 
Merrill’s cord-wood in the fall. Mrs. Bart- 
lett’s house he had often seen up the hill a 
few hundred yards above the gateway at 
which he had turned in to reach the woodlot. 
His thoughts far outran his progress through 
the snow. He pictured Hale’s little figure 
buffeted by the sixty-mile gale which made 
him turn his back ever and anon to catch his 
breath. As he made his way slowly through 
the village, he inquired of every foot passen- 
ger he met if they had seen aught of little Miss 
Merrill. 


Meantime, Hale had ridden merrily off with 


256 HALE MEREILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

the school-team children and surprised Mrs. 
Bartlett with a call. She was inclined to joke 
about the weather and to laugh at Mrs. Bart- 
lett ^s suggestion that she ought to s-tay 
hardly a minute. 

‘‘Aren’t you glad to see me?” asked Hale, 
laughing. 

“Yes, I’m always glad to see you; hut I 
know what it means when the wind comes 
swooping over the shoulder of the mountain 
this way. I ’m going to give you a cup of hot 
chocolate and then you must go. Your 
Grandmother will be anxious about you in 
such a storm. ’ ’ 

Hale drank her chocolate thoughtfully, and 
considered the rushing drive of the snow. 
She began to think she had been a little un- 
wise. Still, she would be home before dark 
and there could be no harm coming from it. 

She was surprised to find, upon setting out, 
how the character of the storm had changed. 
The wind, as Auntie Bartlett had said, was 
swooping roughly over a shoulder of the 
mountain. It seemed to seize her by the 
shoulders and push her forward violently. 


HALE’S BLIZZARD 


257 


With a clear course, Hale would have run be- 
fore the wind and let it push her, hut at pres- 
ent the accumulation of heavy snow made 
such a mode of progress impossible. She 
picked herself up from a tumble and bent all 
her energy to keeping her head and feet prop- 
erly balanced. 

The thickness of the storm shut out the sur- 
rounding landscape and confused her in her 
directions. The beaten track was soon vel- 
vety smooth with its new coat of snow, mak- 
ing her uncertain whether she was still in the 
road. Not a sound, not an object, nothing 
but a world of rushing flakes. She began to 
be a little frightened. What if one were to 
stand still and he covered with flakes, buried 
quite out of sight ! It seemed quite possible 
in the present conditions. 

She came up suddenly against a set of pas- 
ture-bars and clung to them in relief, till she 
recognized that she must have left the road 
and knew not where she was. After that her 
confusion increased. She blundered on a 
few steps and stopped to consider. She was 
sure they had been steps in a wrong direction. 


258 HALE MEERILL HONEY QUEST 

A panic of apprehension seized her. She 
started again in a slightly different direction 
and went on doggedly, only to stumble over 
the protruding roots of a tree and go down on 
all-fours. 

Rising, she walked around the tree and 
tried to make it out. Although it was now 
nearly dark, she felt almost sure this was the 
red oak that stood in the open pasture near 
the turn of the road to Hawthorne. How 
had she come so far off the road ! She stood 
with her back against the trunk and tried to 
think calmly of her difficulties. 

If this was the red oak, then Hawthorne 
lay over there, and the road off here to the 
left. When she had a little more breath she 
would try again. If only some sound of hu- 
mans could reassure her a bit! She hal- 
looed as loudly as she could. The ocean of 
flakes in which she moved absorbed the sound, 
it seemed. 

Moving blindly in what she hoped was the 
right direction, she found a cold sort of com- 
fort in repeating the useless calls. It helped 
keep her blood warm to shout and then feel 



yilE FELT ALMOST SURE THIS WAS THE RED OAK NEAR THE TURN OF 

THE ROAD. — Page 258. 







HALE’S BLIZZARD 


259 


angry at the way the sound was muffled in the 
storm. Her breath was too precious to 
waste, she decided, as she struggled on; yet 
next moment she was aware that she had 
called again. 

It surprised her that she was not cold. 
She was certain she would not freeze even if 
she stayed out all night. Perhaps she could 
find a place somewhere to sit down and rest, 
for certainly she was very tired. The snow 
might bury her quite out of sight, but it would 
be warm and soft and restful. Almost any- 
thing would be better than dragging her steps 
through this entanglement of snow and con- 
fused directions. 

She stumbled and fell, and decided it 
wasn’t worth while to get up, since darkness 
had completely blotted out all hope of finding 
her way. 

How long she sat huddled there she never 
knew. She was beginning to feel a bit 
drowsy when she was rudely awakened by a 
looming object which kicked her roughly and 
fell sprawling across her. 

Tarnation!” gasped a voice, and Hale 


260 HALE MEERILL HONEY QUEST 

murmured, ‘‘Excuse me,’^ and lapsed into 
drowsiness as if the slight interruption was 
of no account. 

The prostrate figure picked itself up and 
rescued a shot-gun and a rabbit which had 
sunk into the snow. Groping then to dis- 
cover the obstacle which had tripped him, he 
struck his free hand vigorously against 
Hale ’s cheek. The shock of the impact 
roused her. She straightened up and found 
herself face to face with Frank Parsons. 

“What in all creation are you doing 
hereU’ he asked, not unkindly. 

“I lost my way,^’ said Hale, drearily. “I 
don’t even know where here is.” 

‘ ‘ Then it ’s well you sat down in the middle 
of the road, or I’d never have known you 
was ’round.” 

“Do you know your way home?” asked 
Hale hopefully. 

“Nothing surer!” boasted Frank. “I can 
keep in the middle of the road from here to 
the village with my eyes shut. Come on. It 
ain’t more ’n a mile now.” 

They plodded slowly along, Frank walking 


HALEYS BLIZZARD 


261 


ahead with his rabbit and gnn, Hale follow- 
ing wearily at his heels. They attempted no 
conversation; sometimes they halted for 
breath; and presently they saw the glow of 
MichaePs flashlight. 

As they waited for him to come np, Frank 
found courage to say what had been in his 
mind all along. 

‘‘I’m not soilin’ cigarettes to the boys any 
more,” he faltered; “not since that day.” 

“Oh,” said Hale, greatly embarrassed. 

“No, nor I don’t ask any of ’em to smoke, 
either.” 

“Oh.” Hale was annoyed that she could 
think of no other answer. 

“I’m not an angel yet,” went on Frank, a 
little hurriedly; “I use ’em myself still; but 
I guess I ain’t quite so mean as I was.” 

Michael came up to them, and Hale at- 
tempted no answer. 

“Well, praise the Lord, I’ve found ye!” 
ejaculated the breathless Michael. “It’s 
glad I am to be turnin’ me back on this 
howlin’ gale.” 

Michael took up his position in the rear of 


262 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

the line and they moved on slowly toward 
the village. At the post-office Frank left 
them, after Michael had assured him that he 
would not need further piloting. They 
called for the Merrill mail and Michael gave 
the one letter to Hale. 

‘‘It’s for Miss Alice,” he said. 

Hale glanced at it and murmured in sur- 
prise, 

“It’s from Miss Dwight.” 

“What’s that?” asked Michael. 

“Nothing, only this letter surprised me,” 
said Hale. 

“Yes, it’s a surprisin’ hig handwriting 
I always mind that handwritin’ and wonder 
if it’s a man or a woman.” 

“Why! has Aunt Alice had others like 
this?” 

“Oh, yes, a matter of three or four I’ve 
took her. ’ ’ 

Hale was puzzled, but she said no more. 

Needless to say, the hour since Michael’s 
departure was a period of unrest and anxiety 
for Grandmother, Aunt Alice, and Delia. 
They tried to keep busy and cheerful, but 


HALE’S BLIZZARD 


263 


found it extremely difiScult. Delia kept com- 
ing in to inquire if they thought this or that 
might have happened to Hale, till Miss Mer- 
rill had to be severe with her. 

‘‘Don’t talk as if Hale were dead, Delia! 
It’s hard for us all to wait, but we’ll have 
to do it. Don’t make it any harder. Keep 
the supper hot and if she isn’t here by half- 
past six, we’ll come and eat.” 

Delia retired to her kitchen in disgust. 

“Eat, is it!” she mumbled; “it’s not a 
mouthful I’ll eat till Hale and me man are 
safe housed again — not if it’s midnight 
first.” 

She did not venture into the sitting-room 
again, but sat brooding by the kitchen range 
and shuddering when spiteful blasts of wind 
shook the blinds and roared in the chimney. 
Presently she heard Michael stamping oif 
snow in the woodshed and, with a heartfelt 
“Praise the Lord!” she hastened to open the 
door. 

In the sitting-room. Grandmother helped 
Hale remove her outside wraps while Aunt 
Alice went up-stairs to prepare a hot tub as a 


264 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

precaution against chill. In half an hour, 
Hale was re-clothed and hungrily devouring a 
hot oyster-stew in the friendly warmth of 
Grandmother’s familiar dining-room. 

She was a good deal awed by her experi- 
ence, but otherwise unhurt, and when they 
had gathered about the open fire Grand- 
mother let her tell about her wandering in 
the snow and her sensations and impressions. 

Not till she was saying ‘^Good night” did 
she remember the letter. 

There was a letter for you. Aunt Alice; 
it’s in my coat pocket. I’ll get it.” 

Miss Merrill flushed slightly as she re- 
ceived the envelope with its dashing super- 
scription, but she made no comment. Hale 
lingered a moment half-supposing that Aunt 
Alice would say something about the letter. 
Then, conscious that she was staring rudely 
at it, she offered to explain. 

thought it looked like Miss Dwight’s 
writing,” she said. 

is,” said Aunt Alice, as if that were 
the end of the matter. ‘‘Run along to bed.” 


HALE’S BLIZZAED 


265 


‘‘How queer!” was tlie only conclusion 
Hale could arrive at, after thinking the mat- 
ter over and over till she was too sleepy to 
think any more. 


CHAPTEE XXn 


BETWEEN- SEASONS 

gay but not gaudy, as the 
I monkey said when he painted his 
tail sky-blue,’’ remarked Michael 
O’Shea, standing back to make a critical 
survey of a stiff cardboard on which he had 
just finished painting alternate black and 
white concentric rings. 

‘‘Oh, thank you, Michael, that looks fine,” 
said Hale from her perch on the table. 

They were out in the wash-room, to which 
Aunt Alice had exiled forever all pasting 
and painting of theatrical properties follow- 
ing an accident to the sitting-room rug; not 
a very bad accident, thanks to Hale’s quick 
rescue of the paste-bowl as it careened and 
threatened a general destruction to table and 
carpet. As it proved, the table was quickly 
wiped off and the spot on the rug was of 
266 


BETWEEN SEASONS 


267 


the size of a silver dollar, but it might easily 
have been worse, and Aunt Alice preferred 
rather to be safe than sorry. 

‘‘Where’ll I put the striped critter?” asked 
Michael. 

“Anywhere so it will dry without getting 
rubbed. The girls will think that’s just 
lovely, Michael. We could hardly get along 
in the Dramatic Club without you; and now 
that Mr. Stickney has found out about it and 
wants us to act our play for the school, I am 
particularly anxious to have things right.” 

“Shur-r-r!” sympathized Michael, hunt- 
ing about for a safe place for the work of 
his hands to rest. 

“Oh, and, Michael,” pursued Hale, “do 
you think you could fix a standard for that to 
lean on, a kind of easel or something to rest 
it on?” 

“What and all do ye think I am?” de- 
manded Michael, holding the board at arm’s 
length to get the idea. “An easel, is it? 
Shure, I no sooner fight me way t ’rough one 
job but ye give me another free times as 
hard I 


268 HALE MEREILL^S HONEY QUEST 

‘Such a gettin^ up stairs I never did see, 

Get up one and fall back t’ree/ 

‘‘You are so funny, Michael,’^ gasped 
Hale, laughing at his antics, for Michael was 
pretending to trip over his own feet as he 
sung the couplet in a voice as awkward and 
lumbering as his figure. 

“Yourself is the funny one,’’ retorted 
Michael, all smiles. “Explain to me now, 
what is a easel? It sounds more hard than 
easy.” 

Hale jumped off the table, and by rapid 
gestures and the aid of a snub-nosed pencil 
showed Michael what she wanted. He stood 
watching her till the idea struck home, when 
he said, “I get ye,” and struck into another 
of his favorite vocal selections, 

“ ‘A chicken, a chucken, a craney crow 
Went to the well to wash his toe,’ ” 

breaking off to sigh in mock dejection and 
declare that “the way of the transgressor is 
hard.” 

They both understood, and so did Delia, 
who could hear it all in the kitchen, that 


BETWEEN SEASONS 


269 


Michael was having the best of good times. 
To fly here and there at Haleys beck and call, 
to fetch and carry for the Dramatic Club 
made him happier than a king. ‘^The Little 
Lady” he called Hale in his talk with Delia, 
and the more Hale ordered him about, the 
more did his peasant soul delight in serving 
her. 

Since the Dramatic Club had resumed its 
interrupted activities, Michael had been con- 
stantly in demand, as popular, he flattered 
himself, as the Prince of Wales. 

How he knew so much about making things 
was the mystery and delight of all the mem- 
bers of the Club. They had only to show him 
a picture of a spear or lance or shield or long- 
bow, and Michael’s ready knife was sure to 
fashion it for them. He enjoyed the work; 
but quite as much he enjoyed the chorus of 
delight and wonder that his talents called 
forth. 

As Hale had intimated, the activities of the 
Club had become known to Mr. Stickney and 
through his adaptation had taken on an in- 
creased importance. If such a piece of work 


270 HALE MEREILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

was in progress, why not let the school have 
the benefit? The Club was willing enough, 
so the question was settled. 

The idea grew even larger in Mr. Stick- 
ney ^s busy mind. After a turn over or two, it 
came to this point: why not let the village 
have the benefit? Nobody who remembered 
the Christmas pageant could offer any objec- 
tion to that. 

On second thought, Mr. Stickney decided to 
wait till the close of the school year when 
weather conditions would permit an outdoor 
performance. 

With this end in view, he shaped his course 
and influenced the Club to re-cast the parts 
to include the high-school pupils, to let boys 
play all the male parts, and to let the action 
center around the theme of ‘‘An Old English 
Fete Day,” rather than attempting to por- 
tray the complicated tale of “Ivanhoe.” 

This manipulation of the original plan was 
so skillfully managed that no one took offense, 
except Beatrice Philips, whose principal 
method of keeping herself in the public eye 
was by airing a grievance every so often. 


BETWEEN SEASONS 


271 


Indeed, the girls of the Dramatic Club had 
been aware of a certain top-heaviness in their 
undertaking and were only too glad to ac- 
cept a guiding and steadying hand. 

As the preparations and rehearsals pro- 
gressed, Michael’s dexterity became known 
to them, and he was entrusted with more and 
more of the work. Hale rejoiced that 
Michael had happened to belong to her fam- 
ily, since it gave her the right to dabble in 
and oversee the property accumulation. Of 
course, he teased her about trying to ‘^boss 
the job,” but she boldly confessed that she 
intended to boss as much as she pleased. 

She did not, however, let him know that 
she was all the time storing up his antics and 
nonsense jingles to repeat to the girls and set 
them oft in gales of laughter. 

Nor did she permit the heavy responsibili- 
ties of the Dramatic Club to interfere with 
her enjoyment of life out of doors. If Eoy 
said, ‘‘Come on out I” she had no scruples 
about leaving Michael to do his work alone, 
or even to finish her own. It must be con- 
fessed that Eoy’s calls came frequently; for 


272 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

the backbone of winter was broken and there 
were great changes in progress from week 
to week. 

Hale had never seen the spring come in the 
country. Once she had motored out wdth her 
father in early May and had been surprised 
to find grass so green and the apple-blos-soms 
bursting, when back in the city one could 
hardly realize that winter was gone. Be- 
cause it burst upon her so suddenly that day 
she had unconsciously made up her mind that 
it would always come so. She was this 
spring to learn her mistake. 

In March, she and Roy had tramped along 
the snowy road one afternoon when Roy sud- 
denly seized her arm and pointed to a swampy 
place below the embankment. 

‘‘Skunk-cabbage!” he announced. 

Hale acknowledged the introduction and 
would have made a closer examination of 
this new acquaintance, but Roy held her back. 

“Better let it alone,” he cautioned. “lUs 
kind of smelly. The only use I know for 
skunk-cabbage is to let a fellow know that 
spring is coming.” 


BETWEEN SEASONS 


273 


Spring questioned Hale. 

‘^Sure thing! That^s the first sign, and 
after a while there will be others. Youdl 
see. Look at the sky now. It isnT the same 
color blue it has been all winter.^' 

‘‘How is it different r’ asked Hale, who 
could see no great change. 

“Oh, I don’t know, except it’s bluer some- 
how, and warmer. Next month we’ll be get- 
ing pussy willows and the snow-water will 
swell all the brooks and ditches. Then the 
mud will be deep and disagreeable in the 
roads, but it won’t last forever.” 

“Do you like spring?” asked Hale. 

“Gee, yes! You know what we’ll do? 
We’ll go down by the river and get pollywogs 
and put ’em in a glass jar and watch ’em 
grow. ’ ’ 

“What are pollywogs?” 

Koy looked at her in blank amazement. 

“For the love of Pete!” he said inele- 
gantly, “don’t you know pollywogs!” 

“No, Mr. Know-it-all, I don’t. Would you 
be so condescending as to tell me?” Hale 
pretended to be very meek. 


274 HALE MEERILL HONEY QUEST 

‘‘Why! they’re young frogs, only they 
don’t have any legs and they don’t look a bit 
like frogs. They have tails and go steering 
around through the water lickety-larrup. I 
never get tired of watching them.” 

“I suppose I have a lot to learn,” said 
Hale, skipping happily at the thought. ‘ ‘ The 
country is just like a big book, with some- 
thing new on every page. ’ ’ 

“You bet it is!” agreed her cousin. 
“There’s the trees, and the wild flowers, and 
the birds, no end of interesting things. I 
know just where to put my hand on a bunch 
of arbutus when the time comes. Nobody 
else knows this place, ’cause I never told.” 

“You’ll tell me, won’t you, Roy?” coaxed 
Hale. 

“May be I will, if you’ll promise, cross 
your throat, you will never tell.” 

“No, I won’t tell.” 

“Arbutus is hard to find ’cause every- 
body yanks it up by the roots and thins it 
out too much. So when you find a patch, you 
want to pick it carefully and keep still about 
it, so it will be there next year.” 


BETWEEN SEASONS 


275 


Hale learned a good deal about the coming 
of spring in the next two months. She was 
often deceived into thinking it had really ar- 
rived, only to be surprised and annoyed to 
wake up and find the ground covered with 
snow. 

‘‘One certainly has to learn patience,’’ she 
decided. “I’m not going to expect it any 
more till the first of June. That will be late 
enough, won’t it. Grandmother?” 

“Yes, plenty,” said Grandmother, smil- 
ing. “I think I can promise you two or 
three things before that. Unless something 
quite unusual happens, you’ll see apple-blos- 
soms the second week in May, and I’m rea- 
sonably sure that the lemon-lilies and the 
fleur-de-lis will be out for Memorial Day. I 
can go a step farther and promise you that 
within a fortnight the elms will be in blossom, 
snow or no snow.” 

“How do you feel so sure?” asked Hale. 

“Because my old eyes are well versed in 
the signs, and to-day as I looked off to the 
west I saw that the elms have a full and 
fringey appearance that they haven’t had all 


276 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

winter. It means just one thing, — that 
spring is very near in spite of snow.’’ 

So from the open book of the world Hale 
learned to read the story of nature in its 
different forms, and to find in each phase 
a throng of interesting things to occupy her 
time and thoughts. 

It was May almost before she knew it. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


BOBBY HALE 


‘^Dear Father: 

have been waiting, and working, many 
long weeks to tell you about my books. At 
first the very thought of them was hateful, 
but I have gradually become reconciled to 
them; and now that they are paid for I am 
really proud of them, and a little proud of 
myself, but I wouldnT say that to any one 
but you. 

‘‘A book agent, by her enticing words, and 
partly by a picture of Joan of Arc, beguiled 
me into the purchase. I thoughtlessly sup- 
posed you would pay for them, but Aunt 
Alice nipped that fond hope in the bud and 
*said I must pay for my^ own folly. ^ So I 
have done it, at last, with my Christmas 
money and my story-telling money and my 
organ-pumping money. Hurrah ! Daddy 
dear, don T say I ’m not a worker ! 

“Now I have a story to tell you and a ques- 
tion to ask, though I don’t want to be rude 
and you once refused to answer the question. 
I’ll tell you the story first. 

“Before the pageant we went to a little 
house up near the mountain to get a lady 
to do some work for the costumes. She is 
277 


278 HALE MEERILL HONEY QUEST 

a lonely lady and she wanted us to come again 
sometime. I have been to see her several 
times since Christmas. One day last week 
Eoy and I were up near her house hunting 
arbutus and I went in to see her. 

‘‘She was making a scrap-book out of pic- 
tures she had saved, and wanted me to look 
at the ones she had already finished. 

“How romantic that such trifling incidents 
often mean so much! The book she called 
her ‘famous people’ has authors and artists 
and so forth pasted in. 

“Well, Daddy dear. I’ll not keep you wait- 
ing for the climax any longer. One of the 
pictures was marked ‘Miss Roberta Hale, 
whose favorite pseudonym of “Little Bobby 
Hale” is dear to the theater lovers of two 
hemispheres. ’ 

“Of course you know the picture. I knew 
it at once and could almost hear her speak. 
How many questions came thronging into my 
mind all in a minute! I must have seemed 
quite dazed to Auntie Bartlett, for I wouldn’t 
look at anything else for minutes and min- 
utes. Then I found she had a lot more Bobby 
Hale pictures, dozens of them in different 
roles and costumes, so I just feasted on them. 
Aren’t they darling! I don’t wonder every 
one loved her. And to think she belonged to 
us out of all the world. What an honor ! 

“The question I want to ask — oh, first I 
must make a confession. I asked Grand- 
mother once if your quarrel with Aunt Alice 
was about Mother and she said it was, so 


BOBBY HALE 


279 


that much I know. What I’d like to ask is, 
will you tell me now whether the quarrel 
was because Mother was an actress? I 
should like to tell Aunt Alice that I have 
seen my mother’s pictures and see what she 
would say; but I shall wait till I hear from 
you. Do answer soon. 

‘Ht is spring here now and Michael is 
working every day in the garden. I dig and 
delve in a plot of my own, though Michael 
pretends I don’t do anything right. 

made a poem the other day. Would 
you like to see it? 

“The little puss willows are shedding their fur, 
The tadpoles are raising some legs ; 

While out in the apple-tree near the back door 
The robin has laid her blue eggs. 

never knew what tadpoles were till 
this spring. Roy thought I was frightfully 
ignorant. I suppose I was. 

^H’m glad you don’t have to go down into 
Mexico, after all. It would take too long. 
As it is, I can hardly wait for you to get 
back. I count off the weeks on my calendar 
and have put a line all round the first week 
in June to commemorate it in advance. 
When you tell me the day I shall enclose 
that by itself. It will be a red letter day. 
I know! I’ll enclose it in red ink. 

Oceans of love, 

‘‘Hale.” 


280 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

The answer to this, which came two weeks 
later said among other things, ^‘Aunt Alice 
will tell you whatever you wish to know 
about your mother.” There was a P. S. 
which said ‘‘You may red-ink the 6th of 
June.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


AUNT AUCE EXPLAINS 

T he same mail which brought Hale’s 
letter from her father brought one 
for Aunt Alice in the same hand- 
writing. Hale received hers with a guilty 
flush and hurried up-stairs to read it alone, 
as if Aunt Alice could know in handling it 
that it concerned herself. 

Miss Merrill placed her mother’s letters 
on the table to await her return from an 
afternoon nap, and sat down to open her 
own. A letter from her brother just at this 
time was unusual, since their only corre- 
spondence had to do with the monthly check 
he sent for Hale, and that was not due for 
two weeks. 

Miss Merrill was, however, not a person to 
speculate over the outside of a letter. She 
opened it briskly and very shortly learned 
its contents. 


281 


282 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 
‘‘Dear Alice: 

“Hale has written me to inquire about 
her mother. She has seen a collection of 
pictures at somebody’s house and wants to 
know how the fact that her mother was an 
actress should have made a quarrel between 
yourself and me. 

“Wouldn’t you better tell her how it was? 
I think you can do it better than I; it’s 
rather a hard thing to explain on paper. 

“Affectionately, 

“Marcus.” 

Miss Merrill read the letter twice before 
putting it away in the envelope. Then she 
tore it through and through and dropped it 
into the fire, watching it turn to ashes. 

“It seems queer now that there should 
have been a quarrel, ’ ’ she mused. ‘ ‘ I declare 
I’m ashamed to own to the child how head- 
strong and foolish I was.” 

Miss Merrill took up her sewing and bent 
her head painstakingly over the stitches. 
One might infer that the needlework required 
her undivided attention, but one would be 
mistaken in so thinking. The proud spirit 
which had kept Miss Merrill stiff and un- 
bending so long was bowing before a home- 


AUNT ALICE EXPLAINS 283 

thrust conviction that it was a contemptible 
thing. 

Miss Merrill did not spare herself. She 
used very strong words in dealing with her 
pride, now that she was ready to face the 
truth. She was ashamed to think she had 
not forestalled her brother’s letter and Hale’s 
questions by an explanation. For months 
she had tried to find courage to do so, but 
her wretched pride had stood in her way. 

Hale ’s discovery of a correspondence be- 
tween her aunt and Miss Dwight could easily 
have led to the explanation, if she had seized 
the opportunity. Pride was the last ob- 
stacle in that long journey of nearly twenty 
years which had brought her at last to the 
point of being just to her brother. 

Hale’s part in the gradual transformation 
had been considerable. Indeed, until last 
September no iota of relenting had suggested 
itself as possible. At this moment, the feel- 
ing that she had made a great sacrifice of 
time and energy to take the burden of Hale’s 
care upon herself was remembered with sur- 
prise. She was ready to admit that the home 


284 HALE MEEKILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

was happier and life more interesting than 
before Hale ’s coming, and certainly the child 
had been very little care. 

Yet here she sat, letting the minutes slip 
by and doing nothing to clear the situation. 

She rose and went resolutely to the door. 

‘‘Hale,^’ she called. 

‘‘Yes, Aunt Alice.’’ 

“Have you read your letter?” 

“Yes, Aunt Alice.” 

“If you’ve nothing special to do, bring 
your knitting and come down here.” 

“Yes, Aunt Alice.” 

There was no doubt in Hale’s mind that 
the interview was to be what she had wished 
so long. She sat down by the fire and took 
her work in hand, trembling with eagerness. 

“Your father writes me that you have seen 
some pictures of your mother.” 

“Yes, Aunt Alice.” 

“What were they?” 

“Many different ones, in all the parts she 
played. ’ ’ 

“Did you know before that your mother 
was an actress?” 


AUNT ALICE EXPLAINS 285 


^^No, Aunt Alice, I never asked her what 
she was/’ 

‘‘That is rather strange.” 

“It was,” admitted Hale, “but I had never 
thought of her as being anything besides my 
mother till the night you spoke of her here, 
as if she had been something wicked. Grand- 
mother said then I might be proud of her.” 

“Grandmother was right. Hale, and I was 
unwise and childish to speak of her that way. 
I think that was the beginning of my recov- 
ery from the delusion that your father had 
been imposed upon. I will not try to shield 
or excuse myself and yet I hope you will 
think as well of me as you can under the cir- 
cumstances, for I was honest in my convic- 
tion. 

“Your father took up his writing habit 
very early in life. He was, in fact, not out 
of high school when he began to burn with 
the desire to be an author. His going to 
college was a matter of some difficulty, be- 
cause my father was no longer with us, but 
we made what sacrifices we had to and he 
started in. Fortunately, he was able to help 


286 HALE MEERILL HONEY QUEST 

himself a little all along by journalistic work. 
At the beginning of his senior year he was 
assured of sufficient income to board at the 
college. Up to that time, he had lived at 
home. 

‘‘We did not hear from him very regularly, 
but we didn’t worry because we knew he was 
busy. In fact. Mother told him that as long 
as she could take the Scribe and read what 
he wrote from week to week she would know 
he was all right. 

“Late one afternoon we received by mail 
a paper from our lawyer, something about 
an obscure piece of property belonging to 
your grandfather’s estate, which must be 
signed that very day by all the heirs, to 
prevent the lapsing of a claim. There 
seemed no other way but for all of us here 
at home to sign it and then that I should 
take the paper to the city and get Marcus to 
sign it. I would have to spend the night in 
town and could deliver the paper to the law- 
yer next day. 

“I had to go on the milk-train from here, 
and it was nearly nine o ’clock when I reached 


AUNT ALICE EXPLAINS 287 


my brother’s room, only to find that he was 
not there. His door was not locked, so I 
went in and lighted the gas to look about and 
see if I could get a clew to his whereabouts. 
I had never seen his college room before, and 
I must confess I was eager to see how it was 
kept. 

‘‘You must remember. Hale, that young 
ladies in my day were brought up with a holy 
horror of the stage and dancing and cards. 
These were the three deadly sins for a young 
woman to avoid. With smoking and horse- 
racing added, they were likewise the curse 
of a young man if they touched him. 

“Think then, how I must have felt to ob- 
serve that my brother’s room was orna- 
mented with photographs of actresses. I did 
not then notice that it was all one actress, 
the costumes and poses were so varied. The 
object of my visit was for the time forgotten 
as I stood there, realizing that my brother 
had been left to his own devices and allowed 
to be scorched by the fire of this great evil. 
How trustingly we had left him to the wicked 
wiles of the great city ! 


288 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

‘H don’t know how long I had been stand- 
ing there when a young man came in, apolo- 
gized for intruding, and said he expected to 
find a note telling him where to meet Marcus. 
The note was there, asking him to meet my 
brother at Bobby’s hotel for a little cele- 
bration. I explained who I was and we went 
together. 

‘‘The celebration was a lobster supper in 
honor of the engagement of my brother to 
the actress whose pictures adorned his room. 
I am ashamed of it now, but I rejoiced at 
the time, that I broke up the party. Marcus 
was frank enough about it (I called it bold- 
ness at the time), told me that little Bobby 
Hale was to be his wife, and invited me to 
join the party. Your mother (it was the only 
time I ever saw her alive) would have been 
very cordial, but I was — myself, I guess. I 
was disturbed beyond the reach of common 
sense. I felt it was my duty to drag my 
brother back from the pit. 

“He took me back to his room and tried 
to reason with me. He showed me all her 
pictures and urged me to read her sweet 


AUNT ALICE EXPLAINS 289 


character in her face; but I would not. I 
could not see anything but a wicked adven- 
turess in any actress whatsoever. I was, of 
course, at the mercy of my prejudices. 

‘‘It was close to twelve o^clock before I 
remembered the paper I had brought to be 
signed. Marcus routed a classmate out of 
bed to witness his signature. Then I went 
to bed in my brother’s room while he camped 
on the couch in his study. 

“I need not drag you through the whole 
quarrel. Marcus was a gentleman, I am 
glad to tell you; more considerate and pa- 
tient with me than I with him, I fear. He 
came home with me next morning and had a 
talk with Mother. I believe he convinced her 
that the lady of his choice was in every way 
worthy of the family name and honor; but 
Mother begged him to wait a while, hoping 
I would see the matter in a happier light 
before he actually brought her into the fam- 
ily. 

“Before he returned to college we had an- 
other session, which I forced upon him in 
the firm intention of wringing a promise from 


290 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

him that he would not marry an actress. He 
would not promise. He was as coolly, 
politely determined not to relinquish her as 
I was hotly and scathingly determined he 
should. I hope, Hale, you will find some 
profit in this confession, for it gives me 
neither pride nor pleasure to make it. 

never saw my brother again till last 
September when I saw you for the first time. 
It was perhaps a year after my visit to the 
college that we had a short note from him. 
Little Bobby Hale had fallen from a faulty 
staging while acting her part, had injured 
her back and could probably never walk 
again. She had no family living, and her 
savings would soon be absorbed by hospital 
expenses. Marcus had married her that day 
and was writing to let us know. 

‘‘Again I was blind to his splendid motive. 
I judged that the actress had trapped him 
to get herself taken care of. Of your fath- 
er’s home life and of you, when you came 
some five years later, I chose to know noth- 
ing. When your mother died, I brought you 
here solely from a sense of duty, because I 


AUNT ALICE EXPLAINS 291 


hoped to counteract the bad influence of such 
a mother as I supposed you had had. 

‘‘That is why I suspected you so persist- 
ently. When your reading caused the town 
to talk, I was filled with alarm. I expected 
you to be a bold, coarse child. That evening 
when you came in with your head bruised 
and refused so steadily and politely to tell 
what had happened, you were your father 
right over again, and I felt ashamed and 
mean. I made up my mind to find out all I 
could about your mother and your bringing 
up. I have been corresponding with Miss 
Dwight, as you know ; and I want to say once 
and for all that you have every reason to be 
proud of your mother and ashamed of your 
Aunt Alice.’’ 

There was a tremor in her voice that went 
straight to Hale’s heart. 

“Don’t feel bad about it. Aunt Alice,” 
she begged, springing up to embrace her. 

Aunt Alice put her work aside and drew 
Hale into her lap. For a few minutes neither 
of them spoke. Words are useless when 
tears speak so eloquently. 


292 HALE MEREILL HONEY QUEST 

‘‘Why! I really love her/’ Hale was 
thinking in surprise. “I didn’t suppose I 
ever could. Oh, I am glad, so glad!” 

She put all the fervor of her new emo- 
tion into the clasp of her arms, and Aunt 
Alice returned it with grateful understand- 
ing. Then it was Hale who wept and had 
to be comforted. 

“I have been hateful in my thoughts of 
you. Aunt Alice. * I am so ashamed and 
sorry,” she sobbed. 

“Never mind, darling. There, there, you 
couldn’t help it. I was not fit to be loved.” 

Then Hale had to control her tears and be 
a comforter in her turn. 

So they talked and cried together till 
everything had been explained and adjusted. 
Altogether it was a rather showery process, 
but it ended as all clearing-up showers do, 
in blue sky and a clear sunset. 

“Now let me go up-stairs and write to 
your father. Hale. I want to make him un- 
derstand how ashamed I am and how glad I 
shall be to make amends, if such a thing is 
possible.” 


AUNT ALICE EXPLAINS 293 

Hale also wrote a letter to her father in 
which she told in minute detail how sorry 
Aunt Alice was for the past, and begged him 
to forgive her. 

Marcus Merrill, reading the two letters, 
smiled at Hale’s jubilation over the disco v- 
ery that ‘^Aunt Alice is, after all, a person 
you can love.” Then turning to his sister’s 
letter, he read it through again. 

‘‘Certainly a new spirit for Alice to ex- 
hibit,” 'he mused gravely. “I believe the 
child may be right.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE GAEDEN 

N OW that the story-telling days were 
over, Hale had more playtime on 
Saturdays, for which she was very 
glad. Much as she loved to tell stories, she 
would have found it hard to be shut in the 
house on days like these. 

Michael O’Shea was proving himself as 
clever with garden tools as with carpenter’s. 
He could hardly wait for the ground to soften 
enough to get his spade into it. He had so 
many plans for laying out garden-plots and 
shrubbery that Grandmother laughingly ac- 
cused him of lying awake nights to think up 
ways of tearing her garden to pieces and re- 
modeling it to suit himself. 

The outside of the house was entirely 
Grandmother’s; that is. Aunt Alice claimed 
no right to say how the lawns and gardens 
should be managed. She would not even act 

294 


THE GARDEN 


295 


as go-between when Michael had suggestions 
to make; so it came to be a standing joke in 
the family that Michael should come every 
morning to ask if Mrs. Merrill would see him 
in the sitting-room or out on the porch. 

Whenever the weather was mild Grand- 
mother preferred the porch, since Michael 
had not changed his brand of tobacco. 

You’d not be steppin’ down to the garden 
to see what I’m plannin’, Mis’ Merrill?” he 
would ask in a coaxing tone. 

‘‘You’d better tell me here, I think, Michael. 
It’s a little damp, isn’t it?” 

“Not enough to hurt a body,” he would 
reply, with his eyes still coaxing. 

“Well, perhaps I will; if you’ll wait till 
I get my rubbers and a wrap.” 

Michael would wait, certainly, if only she 
would come ; and Grandmother, following his 
lead, would try to persuade herself that she 
went only to please Michael, when all the 
time she knew perfectly well that if Michael 
had a plan for the garden she couldn’t wait 
another day to hear what it was, however 
wet the paths might be. It was such a nov- 


296 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

elty in Grandmother’s recent years to find 
some one interested enough to suggest in- 
telligently. 

Michael could never forgive himself that 
he had not come in August to find his Delia. 

“It’s in August that all these things ought 
to be minded,” he would say, disconsolately. 
‘ ‘ Them peonies don ’t belong there, one could 
see with half an eye, but it won’t do to move 
them till next August.” 

“Where would you put them, Michael?” 

“Along there by the walk,” he would say, 
“in a hedge like, where they’ll show their- 
selves otf. And the iris! It’s all very well 
to have it bunched that way, if you don’t care 
a whit for how it looks ; but if you do, then 
f ’why not spread it along by the bank there, 
where it will have a fair show?” 

“That would be desirable, I know,” Grand- 
mother would agree. “Indeed, I tried to 
persuade Tom Cleary to do that last sum- 
mer, but he made it appear that I was all 
wrong in my suggestion.” 

“Tom Cleary, is it?” Michael would say, 
“not him as drives for Snyder on the coal- 


THE GAEDEN 


297 


cart? Well then, I’m not surprised. Shure 
he hasn’t sense enough to plant an acorn, 
say nothin’ of layin’ out a lady’s garden.” 

‘ ‘ Tom thought he had a very great knowl- 
edge of such things,” Grandmother would 
protest, secretly enjoying the ‘‘layin’ out” 
of Tom Cleary which took place in one form 
or another every time the garden plans were 
discussed. 

“Well, all I’d say is, if I could buy that 
fellow for what I think he’s worth and sell 
him for what he thinks he’s worth, I’d never 
have to scratch a poor man’s head a ’more.” 

So that question would end with a big 
good-natured laugh and a contemptuous 
“Tom Cleary, indeed!” and the conversa- 
tion would turn to some more profitable 
phase of the subject, some plan which need 
not be deferred till August. 

It was, “Will you like to have the asters 
planted here?” or, “If the larkspur’s to go 
next the wall, will it do to put the snap- 
dragons here in front, and about how far?” 
or, “Would you be consentin’ to have the 
rose-bush moved to the opposite side of the 


298 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

path to get it out from the shade of that 
hedge that gives it no show?’’ 

Thus would Grandmother and Michael 
chat and plan till Aunt Alice, calling from a 
window, would let them know that it was 
half-past ten and time for Grandmother to 
come in, or she ’d be all tired out. 

Michael had a wonderful time in the 
garden. He sang in a blundering bass like 
a big bumble-bee, all sound and no sense. 
Delia, whose musical ability was quite the 
pride of them both, used to call from her 
pantry window for him to hush and not scare 
the neighbors. Nothing daunted, he would 
lay back his head and roar with laughter, and 
ask her if she were not pleased with his 
tune. 

‘^There’s no tune to it, you rogue!” she 
would charge, ‘‘and it fair makes me dizzy 
to hear such a rumble.” 

Not discouraged or otf ended, his broad 
face would beam with delight through its 
sweat and grime as he returned to his spad- 
ing with a renewed volume of sound. 


THE GAEDEN 


299 


Spring fever affects people in different 
ways, but those who claim to feel listless and 
in need of a tonic are not, as a rule, the peo- 
ple who work in the sod. 

Hale conld hardly keep her feet on the 
ground. What with the orchard a-flutter 
with birds and apple-blossoms, and the brown 
earth cracking away from the sturdy green 
heads of daffodil, tulip, and narcissus that 
were pushing up in spite of Tom Cleary’s 
gross ignorance, and the greenness of mead- 
ows and hillsides, and the blueness of the 
sky, and the warmth of the breeze from the 
south, she sometimes knew not which way to 
turn to express her coltish joy. 

Certainly she sympathized heartily with 
Michael’s unbridled rumble, if that was the 
best he could do. She worked with him 
whenever she had no pressing duties, in a 
small plot which she chose to call her own. 

One Saturday, she and Michael finished 
transplanting the asters and found they had 
a dozen or so more than they needed. Hale 
asked if she might give them to Roy for his 


300 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

garden. There being no objection to the 
plan, she put them in a basket and took them 
to him at once. 

She found him on the back porch rigging 
a water-wheel for the brook. 

‘‘No use!’^ said Roy, resentfully. “I’d 
like the plants well enough, but they’ll never 
live to grow up.” 

“Why not!” 

For answer, Roy poini^ed out across the 
yard where Hale could see a flock of white 
hens, picturesquely dotting the grass and 
scratching under the shrubs. 

“Shut up your chickens so they won’t 
scratch,” she suggested. 

“My chickens!” snapped Roy, so cross it 
made Hale jump. ‘ ‘ The blamed things don ’t 
belong to me. I ’d cut their old heads off for 
a dare ! Had a lot of pansies out there along 
the grape-trellis, and they scratched up ev- 
ery last one of ’em.” 

“Why doesn’t Mrs. Foster keep them shut 
up!” 

“You can search me!” scolded Roy. 
“Probably because she knows we’d like to 


THE GARDEN 


301 


have her. She doesn’t care about gardens 
and things, and she thinks nobody else does 
so long as her biddies lay plenty of eggs.” 

Hale seated herself on the step and silently 
watched Roy wiring two flanges together, 
though her mind was not on what he was do- 
ing. Presently she clapped her hands, and 
Roy jumped. 

‘‘ ’Scuse me!” laughed Hale. didn’t 
mean to scare you, but I’ve thought of the 
biggest idea you ever knew! Wait a min- 
ute.” 

She went into the house, returning very 
shortly with something in her basket which 
she would not show Roy. 

Don’t come,” she said over her shoulder 
as she started down the path. 

All Roy could see was that she swooped to 
the ground for a second, beside the syringa- 
bush; then she was again beside him on the 
step. 

‘‘The stage is set for the big idea!” she 
told him in excited glee. “Listen, Roy; 
you’ll have to help act the scene. Will you 
do it?” 


302 HALE MEEEILL HONEY QUEST 

^‘Sure thing! What is it?” 

‘HUs the big idea. When I say — ” She 
broke off suddenly as the door of the Foster 
house opened and the owner of the hens ap- 
peared. The scene is about to begin. All 
you have to do is to say, ‘That’s good; we 
can use them.’ Do you understand!” 

“That’s good; we can use them,” repeated 
Eoy. “I guess I’m good for that much of 
a part. Is that all I say!” 

“Yes, that’s all; only say it up good and 
loud so she — our audience — ^will hear.” 

“Trust me!” promised Eoy. 

Hale stood up and shook herself. She 
stepped carelessly down to the walk and be- 
gan a tour of inspection of the strip along the 
grape-trellis, where numerous hollows showed 
the work of the Foster hens. Slowly, but 
not too slowly, she approached the syringa- 
bush. Mrs. Foster, on her own back porch, 
was quietly brushing a winter coat, turning 
the pockets and rubbing off spots. 

“Oh, Eoy!” called Hale clearly. “Here 
are four eggs under this bush.” 

“That’s good; we can use them,” came 


THE GARDEN 


303 


clearly from the other porch, before Roy, see- 
ing the big idea, began to choke in smothered 
laughter. 

Shall I bring them upT^ asked Hale. 

‘ ‘ Sure ! The more the merrier, ’ ^ came the 
answer. 

Hale gathered up the eggs, listening all the 
while for a sound from the Fosters’ porch. 
Yes, there it was. She rose to find Mrs. 
Foster close to the boundary fence. 

‘‘Excuse me, little girl,” she said, blandly; 
“but I think those eggs belong to me. My 
hens must have laid them there. ’ ’ 

“I’m sure I don’t know whose hens laid 
them,” answered Hale, sweetly, “but if it 
was yours, they won’t any more than pay 
for the scratching up they have done. I 
suppose Aunt Nan will be more reconciled to 
her losses if the good biddies give her an 
egg now and then.” 

So saying. Hale turned and tried not to 
make undue haste getting back to the porch. 
Roy, not daring to trust himself, had van- 
ished into the house. 

Having carefully replaced the eggs in their 


304 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

pan, Hale joined him at the kitchen win- 
dow, where through the sheltering scrim cur- 
tain, they had a view of Mrs. Foster with a 
pan of corn earnestly enticing her wander- 
ing birds back home. 

When they were safely gathered in, and 
Mrs. Foster, walking very stiff and straight, 
had also withdrawn from the scene, the two 
young people set out their little plants. 


CHAPTEB XXVI 


THE SIXTH OF JUNE 


T he sixth of June! 

Hale opened her eyes a bit sleep- 
ily at first, then remembering what 
day it was, sat up and looked about her. 

Sunlight flowing over everything, dew shin- 
ing on the grass, birds calling from tree to 
tree and flashing their wings in the sun. 
Good! 

It was early, of course, but what did that 
matter! She would get up. Being up and 
dressed, she found it was only five o’clock. 
Never mind ! 

She went down-stairs and out into the sweet 
June morning. Michael was already out, 
tying up the rose-bush against the porch. 

‘‘What brought you about this time o’ the 
day?” he wanted to know. 

“Michael, you’re hopeless! Haven’t I 

305 


306 HALE MEERILL HONEY QUEST 

told you a hundred times that my father is 
coming to-day U’ 

^‘Is it to-day gasped Michael in excel- 
lent surprise. ‘‘Well now! I must ’a’ lost 
a day somewheres, or are you ahead o^ 
timer' 

“Don't try to tease me, Michael. I shall 
simply explode if I have to wait another day. 
It 's bad enough to wait till noon. I 'm going 
to look at my garden and see if any weeds 
have come up over night." 

“You're expectin' too much o' the weeds, 
I 'm thinkin '. Shure it was fair eight o 'clock 
last night when you left otf worryin' their 
poor lives out o' them. You should gi' them 
a little time to take their beauty sleep," 
laughed the irrepressible Michael. 

“I might have overlooked one or two," 
Hale offered as a more plausible excuse. 
“You mustn't laugh at me to-day, for I've 
so much to contend with." 

“Contend!" repeated Michael, coming 
down and shouldering his ladder to bear it 
away. “What have we been doin' for a 
week back, but sweepin' away all obstacles 


THE SIXTH OF JUNE 307 

so you could have everythin^ ready for 
your pa ? ’ ’ 

‘‘That’s just the trouble,” Hale pointed 
out. “I’ve seven hours to wait and it takes 
patience. I almost wish I had a lot to do, so 
I couldn’t notice the time so much. I shall 
arrange it that way next time, if I ever let 
my father go otf again without me.” 

“No doubt ’twould he as well to try it for 
a change,” sympathized Michael, with vivid 
memories of the tyranny of Hale’s exactions 
during the past week. 

Hale ’s garden-plot was as clean as a newly- 
swept floor. It looked very smart in its 
morning freshness. The pansies ought to be 
picked to-day, but they were to be left there 
for Father to see. The vases in the house 
were to be filled with fleur-de-lis from the 
crowding hundreds that flooded the corner, a 
monument to Tom Cleary’s stubbornness. 
The choicest of the roses were to be put in 
Father ’s room. 

How could she ever wait till the 12.20 train 
pulled in! It might even be late; it often 
was. Hale wished she hadn’t thought of 


308 HALE MERRILL’S HONEY QUEST 

that. On the other hand, if it came in on 
time by hurrying away from the junction 
without waiting for the western train, that 
would be worse, much worse, for it would 
mean three hours more of waiting. 

She tried to dismiss all thought of the 
day’s great event and quite suddenly re- 
member it in time to get to the station. Of 
course, that was impossible, as she very soon 
discovered. If school were only in session! 
Why should Daddy choose Saturday? Well, 
of course, there would be the afternoon to- 
gether. 

Time does jog on, however, and the long- 
awaited moment arrived. When the train 
was heard to whistle down at the curve, on 
time, Hale’s heart went down into a bottom- 
less pit, and then suddenly rose to her throat 
and stuck there. She was sure the train 
hadn’t waited for the western connection. 
She turned her back and swallowed hard, but 
her heart would not go back where it be- 
longed. 

She heard the train rumble and creak to 
a stop, she heard the baggage-master rattle 


THE SIXTH OF JUNE 


309 


by her with his heavy truck, she heard the 
people tramping the platform, she heard their 
greetings, she heard the conductor's shouted 
command, the warning clang of the engine 
bell, and the exhaust of steam as the train 
took motion to depart. 

Not till then did she turn slowly round to 
confirm her fears, and found herself face to 
face with her father. 

‘‘What sort of a greeting is thisT’ he 
gasped, through her choking embraces. 

‘ ‘ Oh, ^scuse my back, please. Daddy dear ! 
I was so sure you’d missed the train I 
couldn’t bear to look. Oh, Daddy, Daddy 
darling ! ’ ’ 

Neither Grandmother nor Aunt Alice 
would divide Hale’s welcome by going with 
her to the train. They both greeted the 
traveler in the doorway and relinquished him 
to Hale again. She could not keep her eyes 
away from him, nor herself out of his lap, 
till Delia brought the news of dinner and it 
became necessary for each to occupy a sep- 
arate chair at the table. Even then, she de- 
voured more Daddy than dinner, so to speak. 


310 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

'H’m going to take this young lady for a 
little walk,’’ Mr. Merrill announced as they 
left the table. ‘‘She thinks she has some 
things and places to show me and we may 
have a few words to say to each other.” 

They toured the garden and the orchard 
and then struck off across the field to the 
river, talking to cover the months of their 
separation. 

“It isn’t difficult to see, my little girl, that 
the hardship of living in Hawthorne doesn’t 
bother you much now. I’ve been wondering 
whether you want to stay on here, or shall 
we open up the city house ? ’ ’ 

Hale drew a deep breath before she an- 
swered: “I want to do what you want to do, 
but I hope it’s what I really want to do.” 

‘ ‘ That sounds Irish ! ’ ’ laughed Mr. Merrill. 

“Blame Michael for that; he’s quite Irish 
and I’m apt to catch things of that sort. 
What I mean is. I’ll gladly live wherever you 
say, but I hope you’ll say Hawthorne. 
Couldn’t you write here as well as any- 
where ? ’ ’ 

She hung breathlessly on his answer. 


THE SIXTH OF JUNE 311 

‘‘Better!’’ was what he said, and she ca- 
pered happily. 

“Yon see, I have a great many friends 
here, and besides, I like the country best,” 
she explained. 

It was quite unnecessary to have said it; 
her father could not have been the student 
of human nature that he was without seeing 
that Hale was practically made over. She 
was taller, more robust, more independent, 
more alive than he had ever seen her before. 

“Eemember how sure you were that it 
would be horrid to live in the country,” he 
reminded her. 

“I was ignorant then. Now I know. I 
don’t suppose I can explain what I mean, but 
here we don’t live just to ourselves as we 
did in the city, and I think it’s lots nicer. 
We are sort of in company with each other 
in everything.” 

“I’m glad you feel that way,” said her 
father, patting the hand she had snuggled 
into his turned elbow. “I missed the ‘in 
company’ feeling all the time I lived in the 
city. I think we shall agree on that. Do 


312 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

you know a house over on the turnpike called 
the Bowman place he added, quite irrele- 
vantly. 

Hale knew the place and added the infor- 
mation that it had been vacant all winter, 
but had recently been sold. No one had come 
to live in it as yet, but the garden had been 
plowed and planted as if some one intended 
to. 

Having by this time followed the river up- 
stream to the turnpike bridge, Mr. Merrill 
asked Hale if she would care to walk a little 
farther. Anywhere, she told him. 

‘^The fact is,’’ he explained, ‘H know the 
man who intends to live there and I have un- 
dertaken, while I am here and have a few 
weeks on my hands, to oversee the repairs 
and the gardening for him till he can wind 
up his affairs and take possession.” 

The house was an everyday little house 
which Hale had never taken the trouble to 
look at very particularly. She tagged after 
her father while he inspected every room and 
made half-audihle comments to himself. He 
seemed bent on doing his duty by his absent 


THE SIXTH OF JUNE 


313 


friend, for he gave much closer attention to 
details of worn doorsills and blistered paint 
and loose window-frames than Hale thought 
necessary, writing many items in his pocket 
note-book. 

‘^How do you think this dining-room will 
look when those two narrow windows are 
knocked out and a row of three wide ones 
put in, high enough for a buffet to stand 
underneath 1 ^ ’ 

‘^All right, said Hale, indifferently. 

There’s a fireplace in here that’s been 
boarded up, I think.” 

‘Hs there?” 

‘^Yes, and one in the sitting-room, too. 
We’ll have to open them up and see if that 
isn’t an improvement.” 

Hale acquiesced politely, but it must be 
confessed that she felt herself defrauded of 
her father’s valuable time by this unknown 
and inconsiderate friend. Her spirits bright- 
ened when her father at last said he was 
ready to go home. 

As they walked down the street he suddenly 
turned, right in the midst of something she 


314 HALE MEREILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

was saying, and looked back at the little 
house. 

‘‘How do you think it would look painted 
white with green blinds T’ he asked, after a 
long scrutiny. 

“All right, said Hale, without interest. 
“Almost any color would be better than that 
dirty gray.’^ 

She was a little hurt because her father 
did not ask her to finish her interrupted re- 
mark. It was disappointing not to be his 
first and only thought on this day of all 
others. She clung to his arm and walked 
on in silence. 

The evening by the fire was an improve- 
ment, however, for her father talked of his 
western experiences and of his play, which 
was now finished and in the hands of a pro- 
ducer. He also questioned Hale about the 
Dramatic Club and her other interests, and 
made up for the preoccupation of the after- 
noon by sympathetic attention to the details 
she poured forth. 


CHAPTER XXVn 


AK ENGUSH PETE DAY 

H ad Hale been less occupied with 
the final preparations for the 
school festival which was to in- 
clude the Old English Fete Day, she might 
have felt the lack of her father’s undivided 
attention as the June days went by. 

Certain it was that he spent many hours 
in the cottage known as the Bowman place, 
with a small army of workmen who had much 
ado to keep out of each other’s way. Never 
was work rushed more relentlessly. The 
electricians were pushed to keep ahead of the 
paperers; the painters followed close on the 
heels of the carpenters. 

Windows appeared where windows had 
never been, and fireplaces had their faces un- 
veiled after long retirement. Antiquated 
plumbing was ripped out and replaced by 
315 


316 HALE MEERILL’S HONEY QUEST 

shining nickel and enamel. The outside of 
the house received its transforming coats of 
white, set off with green blinds. 

On a day about two weeks after his return, 
Mr. Merrill made a trip to the city to be gone 
several days. 

‘^DonT dare to stay over the twenty-ninth. 
Daddy dear,’’ cautioned Hale. ‘‘You must 
see our wonderful Fete Day, whatever hap- 
pens.” 

“I’ll be back in plenty of time,” he prom- 
ised. “Never fear! I wouldn’t miss it for 
a fortune.” 

“Did I give you that list of costumes we 
want you to order ? Oh, yes, of course I did. 
Don’t forget them whatever you do. And 
the wigs for the gentlemen-in- waiting. Daddy, 
they must be white and queued, you know. ’ ’ 

“Yes, yes, I know. Bless me, how import- 
ant we are ! Does it all depend on you, little 
corporal?” 

‘ ‘ Don ’t tease. Daddy dear ! Of course, I ’m 
not very important, but I’m some help, I 
guess. I must go now, for I promised to be 
there to practise the Morris Dance before 


AN ENGLISH FETE DAY 317 

school. Beatrice Philips is so awkward she 
puts everybody out, and, of course, we can’t 
say anything to hurt her feelings, so we just 
go through it and through it till we are ready 
to drop. Good-by, Daddy dear.” 

Mr. Stickney ’s plans had been working out 
well. He had turned every activity of the 
school to account to make the closing exer- 
cises a credit to the town. The effort ex- 
pended was no more in the aggregate than it 
would have been had each teacher prepared 
some simple visitors’ day program for her 
room alone. A part had been provided for 
every separate child and, best of all, no Mrs. 
Mother would have to lament that while she 
was hearing her Nellie speak a piece in the 
first-grade room, her Percy was at the same 
moment reciting his in the sixth with no fond 
parent to hear him. 

When the time arrived, the common was as 
gay as a garden of poppies, as the children 
in their quaint costumes circulated among 
their guests to show themselves off and be 
admired. This was, to every one’s mind, 
much better than keeping them hidden till the 


318 HALE MEEEILL HONEY QUEST 

moment of action. Mr. Stickney had rea- 
soned that restraint would be an unnecessary 
hardship for both teachers and pupils. The 
costumes might as well be admired at leisure, 
since once the action started there would be 
so much else to see. 

To this end he urged the children to carry 
out the spirit of the English Fete Day by 
greeting all the guests and spreading neigh- 
borly feelings both before and after the pro- 
gram. The gong would call them to their 
places when it was time for the events to be 
run off. 

Grandmother Merrill, Aunt Alice, and 
Hale’s father were the center of a constantly 
shifting group of players, for Hale kept 
bringing them up to explain them to her 
family. 

‘‘These are the fairies. Father, see! All 
the first and second grade girls. Aren ’t they 
darling with their wings and antennae? 
Eun, Laura May, and bring Eobert over here. 
I want Father to see some of the elves. The 
first and second grade boys are the elves. 
Such cute little scamps you never saw before. 


AN ENGLISH FETE DAY 319 

Oh, here you are, Eoberty-Bobbet I How’s 
that for a black-eyed elf. Father?” 

^ ^ Adorable ! ’ ’ exclaimed Mr. Merrill, 
swinging the imp to his shoulder, to the de- 
light of the group. Small Eobert was not so 
sure of his safety. He wriggled down and 
ran away, as a new group came swarming 
up to be inspected. 

‘‘These are the next two grades, the flower 
girls and pages for the king and queen. The 
girls will have baskets of flowers, but we 
don’t let them have those till it’s time to be- 
gin. The fifth and sixth graders will wind 
the May-pole. The seventh-grade boys are 
chimney-sweeps; I’ll find one.” 

Hale skipped away to find a chimney- 
sweep and came back leading a group of 
them. 

“No velvets and laces for these fellows,” 
she explained, “but they like it this way. 
They even like having their faces smeared.” 

“You bet!” agreed Dick Eyder, with a 
grin. “First time I ever got ready for a 
party that I didn’t have to have my face 
clean. ’ ’ 


320 HALE MEERILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

hate to meet this crowd on a dark 
night, laughed Mr. Merrill, glancing from 
face to face, each as grotesque as the use of 
charcoal could make it. 

‘ ‘ Careful of your brushes, cautioned Hale, 
‘‘don’t let them hit against the ladies’ 
dresses.” 

Off they capered, in high delight, the envy 
of all the other boys, who watched them roll 
on the grass and rough each other about 
without fear of spoiling their clothes. 

The seventh-grade girls were milkmaids, 
very quaint and demure in their big white 
aprons and stiff starched caps. Their milk- 
pails were gayly festooned with buttercups 
and yellow streamers. 

Robin Hood and Maid Marian had been 
picked from the eighth grade, with their class- 
mates for attendants, the lads in Lincoln 
green and the lasses in red skirts and black 
bodices with white waists; a gay and gal- 
lant company. 

“My grade is the Morris Dance group, as 
you know,” Hale reminded them. “Now I 
want you to see the special characters. The 


AN ENGLISH FETE DAY 321 

high-school pupils are all taking parts. 
There are the king and the queen talking 
with Mr. Stickney. The court ladies and gen- 
tlemen are lovely. Some of the girls haven T 
much idea what to do with such trains, but 
they look lovely; and the boys do certainly 
look handsome in their black velvets and 
white stockings. Their wigs change them so, 
don’t they?” 

‘‘You’ll wear yourself all out, young lady, 
if you don’t quiet down and stop dancing 
about,” cautioned her father. 

“Oh, no I” Hale flung over her shoulder as 
she caught a glimpse of something and ran 
to an opening in the crowd to look at it. 

“It’s the hobby-horse,” she explained, 
coming back. “Here he comes. Isn’t he 
funny!” 

The hobby-horse came cavorting over the 
green, backing and charging, plunging and 
kicking in a most erratic fashion. His 
“rider,” who was none other than Frank 
Parsons, showed great skill in managing so 
spirited a steed. So masterfully did he han- 
dle the reins and the whip that even the 


322 HALE MERRILL HONEY QUEST 

grown-ups forgot that, concealed by the gay 
caparison, it was Frank ^s legs that gave the 
motion. As for the little folks, they watched 
the tossing head and flowing tail, saw the 
little artificial legs flopping perilously against 
the fat sides of the hobby, and were sure the 
creature was four-footed and alive. They 
squealed with terror or delight in turn, ac- 
cording as the hobby horse was headed to- 
ward them or far afield. 

Frank was under promise to Mr. Stickney 
not purposely to annoy or frighten any of 
the little folks, and Frank was keeping his 
promises these days and trying to deserve 
the good opinion of the right people. He 
cantered up to Hale and her group and halted 
for inspection. 

‘‘You’re making a great hit!” Hale as- 
sured him. 

She introduced him to her father. 

“Certainly you have the knack of making 
the little creature look alive,” Mr. Merrill 
commented, heartily. 

“I feel as if he is alive,” said Frank, run- 
ning his hand up along one stiff ear, as if he 


AN ENGLISH FETE DAY 323 

expected to get the usual responsive toss of 
the animaPs head. Then as the gong struck 
for assembly, he whirled away and galloped 
full tilt up to the schoolhouse. 

The kaleidoscopic movement which began 
the moment the gong sounded very soon re- 
solved itself into a complete separation of the 
players from their spectators. The latter 
moved into place and found seats on the tem- 
porary bleachers which had been arranged 
for their comfort; and the show was on. 

The King and Queen, Henry VIII and his 
Catherine of Aragon, were heralded by min- 
strels and accompanied by a vast following of 
lords and ladies, flower-girls and pages, and 
a ridiculous clown. When they were seated 
upon their throne and their retinue properly 
bestowed, the revelry began with the dance of 
the elves and the fairies. 

The Queen of the May was chosen and 
crowned. Then followed in turn the May 
Pole dance, the Chimney-sweep drill, the 
Milkmaids’ dance, and a contest at archery 
among Eobin Hood’s band. The Morris 
Dance was the last of the special events. 


324 HALE MEREILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

Each dance was heralded by the minstrels 
and applauded by the King and Queen and 
all the court. The clown had his own pecu- 
liar stunts to run off between the dancing 
numbers, and the hobby-horse registered his 
delight and approval by galloping wildly 
across the green and cutting capers innumer- 
able. 

There had been some discussion as to the 
best song with which to close the exercises. 
Some thought an English song would be the 
best, others favored something patriotic. 
The choice finally settled upon ‘‘America,’^ 
which, Mr. Stickney tactfully pointed out, was 
both English and patriotic. The audience 
was invited to join in the singing and to lin- 
ger for sociability and simple refreshments. 

They lingered, certainly, as if they couldn’t 
tear themselves away. It was a pleasure to 
see them so neighborly, and to hear their 
glowing praise. 

don’t believe there is another town in 
the State could make such a splendid show- 
ing.” 


AN ENGLISH FETE DAY 325 

course there isn’t, nor another school 
with such likely children. ’ ’ 

“Nor a principal anywhere to compare 
with Mr. Stickney.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE BOWMAN PLACE 

‘‘TT has been a gala day!’^ declared Mr. 

I Merrill, smiling lovingly upon Hale, 
A who was more excited and radiant than 
ever. He wondered how he ever could have 
worried about her and thaught her a frail 
child. 

The Merrills were almost the last to leave 
the common, chiefly because they were wait- 
ing for Hale to speak a last word to this one 
and that one, to gather up her scattered be- 
longings, and to make up her mind to leave 
the spot. 

When at last she was ready to go, she 
found her father alone. 

‘‘Grandmother and Aunt Alice had a 
chance to ride home with Mrs. Porter,’’ he 
told her. “Are you too tired to take a look 
at the Bowman place with me? I want to 

326 


THE BOWMAN PLACE 327 

see if the steam-fitters finished their job to- 
day. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ No, I ’m not tired, ^ ’ said Hale. ‘ ‘ Are you 
going to slave all summer on that Bowman 
house? I want you a little to myself now 
that school is out. Daddy.’’ 

“You can have me!” promised her father. 
‘ ^ The owner will be moving in this week, and 
after that I shall not have to leave you. We 
can be together all day long.” 

As they drew near the cottage Hale ex- 
claimed in delight over its improved appear- 
ance. She had not seen it since that day 
three weeks ago. 

They went first into the cellar where they 
found the workmen packing up their tools. 

“Yes, the job is finished, Mr. Merrill,” said 
the boss. “You’ll find that’s a good fur- 
nace and easy to run. The little girl could 
run it if need be. Good night.” 

They went up to the kitchen where fresh 
paint and new brasses made a cheerful at- 
mosphere; going from thence to the dining- 
room through a pass-pantry full of new cup- 
boards and drawers. The new windows had 


328 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

quite transformed the room. It was light 
and airy now instead of dull and close. The 
fireplace suggested cozy breakfasts and sup- 
pers when the brightness of a fire would mean 
more than the heat it threw out. 

They found the front rooms somewhat en- 
cumbered with furniture, carefully burlapped 
and tagged. 

^‘That’s good!’’ said Mr. Merrill. 
thought it would be here to-day. See this, 
Hale, how do you like the front hall?” 

‘‘Wait a minute. Father; I’ve just thought 
of something.” 

Mr. Merrill turned where he stood in the 
doorway and observed that Hale was exam- 
ining the tags on the separate articles. 

“Why are these all sent to you?” she 
asked. 

“Because I was the one to receive them. 
Don’t you think thaUs the right idea?” 

“I guess so,” said Hale, coming now and 
pushing past her father in an excited sort of 
way. Her whole manner had changed. She 
looked eagerly about with quick birdlike turn- 
ings of her head, gave a hasty assent to her 



“Is THAT OUR SOFA, OB IS IT NOT ?“ — F age 329, 



THE BOWMAN PLACE 329 

father remark about the hall and hurried 
into the other front room. It also had furni- 
ture, covered and tagged.' Hale pounced 
upon the tags. 

‘‘Lower northwest,’’ she read and looked 
suspiciously at her father. “How did the 
man know just which room to send his things 
to?” 

“He knows all about the house. Why 
shouldn’t he?” 

“I don’t know,” murmured Hale, study- 
ing the shrouded old-fashioned sofa. She 
ran her fingers thoughtfully along the curve 
of the high back, and looked again sus- 
piciously at her father who stood with a half- 
smile in his eyes regarding her expectantly. 

“Daddy, do I ‘suspicion’ correctly?” she 
asked, quoting a phrase from Michael 
O’Shea. “Is that our sofa, or is it not?” 
Then as her father’s expression broke in spite 
of the etfort he made not to give himself 
away too soon, she flew at him and nearly 
strangled him. 

“Daddy Merrill, are we going to live here? 
Just you and I? Does this cunning house 


330 HALE MERRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

belong to you? Was it your own work you 
were having done all the time? Say I’’ 

‘‘Yes, to all those questions. Now what 
do you think of it all?” 

‘ ‘ I think it is heavenly, ^ ^ said Hale. “Now 
show it all to me again!” 

There was nothing the least bit indifferent 
about Haleys inspection this time, nor about 
her approval either. She examined every 
nook and corner, every drawer and cupboard, 
upstairs and down, the front porch facing 
west and the long veranda on the north. She 
admired the old-fashioned stairway with two 
landings, and the parlor walls with their 
wainscot as high as her father’s head. 

She located her own room and her father ’s, 
and an adorable white bathroom, and a guest 
room, and a study for her father’s work. 
She looked out of windows to see the view and 
glimpsed an alluring old brick walk leading 
away to the garden. 

“We can have fleur-de-lis bordering the 
walk,” she exulted. “Michael will move it 
for us in August. Can’t you just see it in a 
picture. Daddy! If we could only have Mi- 


THE BOWMAN PLACE 331 

chael to work for us! He simply loves a 
garden into doing its best.’’ 

‘^Grandmother says we may have Michael 
half of each week.” 

“That will be heavenly.” 

It was fast approaching Aunt Alice’s im- 
movable supper hour when Mr. Merrill finally 
succeeded in separating Hale from her new 
toy. 

“You mustn’t get too much of it in one 
day,” he warned her, “because we shall have 
to be pretty busy for several days getting it 
set to rights and ready to live in. I don’t 
want you to get sick of it.” 

Hale scorned the idea. 

“I’ll never get sick of it. I can hardly 
wait to begin. What troubles me is that I 
don’t know enough about keeping house to 
do it right for you. Daddy dear.” 

“Bless your heart! I don’t expect you to. 
Of course you will be the housekeeper, the 
one who carries the keys, I mean ; but I have 
a fine strong woman engaged to come Satur- 
day who will bake and brew and serve us 
two. Will that be nice!” 


332 HALE MEBRILL ’S HONEY QUEST 

‘^Heavenly said Hale for the seventh 
time within an hour. ‘‘Now I shall really 
belong to Hawthorne for ever and ever; and 
that will be heavenly, too.’^ 

Of course, Grandmother and Aunt Alice al- 
ready knew the secret of the little house. 
They listened sympathetically, however, 
while Hale poured forth her enthusiasm, to 
the neglect of her supper. 

“There, Hale,^^ said Aunt Alice, at last, 
“you have talked so much and eaten so little 
we are all waiting for you to finish your sup- 
per. We must let Delia have the table now, 
for she and Michael are going to their church 
festival to-night. Bring your cake and 
strawberries out to the porch if you want 
them. ’ ’ 

They sat on the porch till darkness fell, 
talking sometimes of the future, sometimes 
of the past. 

“I didnT much think last September I’d 
be as happy as this,” said Hale. “Wouldn’t 
it have been dreadful if Father had listened 
to me and taken me out West or put me in 
an orphan asylum?” 


THE BOWMAN PLACE 


333 


‘‘Rather dreadful, I should think,’’ said 
Grandmother, “for a little girl who was 
needed so much right here in Hawthorne. ’ ’ 
“A little girl who needed Hawthorne so 
much, I guess you mean,” suggested Hale. 


THE END. 


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